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The History of Civilization 


In the Section of this Series devoted io PRE-HistoRY AND ANTIQUITY are 
included the following volumes :— 


I. Introduction and Pre-History 


*SOCIAL ORGANIZATION . t : . W.H.R. Rivers, F.R.S. 
THe EARTH BEFORE HIsTory . : ; Edmond Perrier 
PREHISTORIC MAN ; ; ° ; Jacques de Morgan 
LANGUAGE: A LINGUISTIC INTRODUCTION TO 

History . : > : - Professor J. Vendryes 
A GEOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO History . Professor Lucien Febvre 
RAcE AND History ; f : 2 Professor E. Pittard 
From TRIBE TO EMPIRE : p . . Professor A. Moret 

*MONEY IN EARLY TIMES ; : ; : A. R. Burns 

*THE DIFFUSION OF CULTURE . : . Professor G. Elliot Smith 

*THE MIGRATION OF SYMBOLS . : ; Donald A. Mackenzie 

*THE DAWN OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION . V. Gordon Childe, B.Litt. 

*THE ARYANS  . : i : . V. Gordon Childe, B.Litt. 

*WOMAN’S PLACE IN SIMPLE SOCIETIES , . Professor J. L. Myres 

*CYCLES IN HISTORY : ‘ 5 : Professor J. L. Myres 

IT. The Early Empires 

MESOPOTAMIA . < : ; ‘ Professor L. Delaporte 
THE AXGEAN CIVILIZATION ; A . Professor G. Glotz 
THE NILE AND EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION . Professor A. Moret 

*COLOUR SYMBOLISM OF ANCIENT EGypT 2 Donald A. Mackenzie 

ITT. Greece 

THE FORMATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE : Professor A. Jardé 

*ANCIENT GREECE AT WoRK = A : Professor G. Glotz 
THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF GREECE . v Professor C. Sourdills 
ART IN GREECE ; ; S A. de Ridder and W. Deonna 
GREEK THOUGHT AND THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT . ' Professor L. Robin 
THE GREEK CITY AND ITS INSTITUTIONS ; Professor G. Glotz 
MACEDONIAN IMPERIALISM ; : . Professor P. Jouguet 

IV. Rome 
PRIMITIVE ITALY 5 ; , ; Professor Leon Homo 
THE ROMAN SPIRIT IN RELIGION AND ART 7 Professor A. Grenier 
RoMAN POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS ; : Professor Leon Homo 
ROME THE LAW-GIVER : : ‘ Professor J. Declareuil 
ANCIENT ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION ‘ : ; J. Toutain 
THE ROMAN EMPIRE . : : , : Victor Chapot 

*ANCIENT ROME AT WoRK ; : - ¥ Paul Louis 
THE CELTS : 4 . i. i Professor H. Hubert 


* An asterisk indicates that the volume does not form part of the French col 
“L’Evolution de lHumanité ” (of which the present work ie Ste 12 of the First ‘Sac 
published under the direction of M. Henri Berr, editor of the ‘‘ Revue de Synthése Historique.” 


A full list of the SERIES will be found at the end of this volume. 


Art in Greece 


By 
A. DE RIDDER 
Past Member of the Athens School and Curator at the Louvre Museum 
AND 


W. DEONNA 


Past Foreign Member of the Athens School, Professor at the University 
of Geneva, and Director of the Geneva Museum of Art and Htstory 


WITH SIXTY-SIX FIGURES IN THE TEXT AND 
TWENTY-FOUR PLATES 


LONDON 
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. 
NEW YORK: ALFRED A. KNOPF 


1927 


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(The transliteration and 


3 of 


do we A by 


translation follow the Rules 


CONTENTS 


FOREWORD 


INTRODUCTION. By A. pre RiIppER 


I: Wuat ART MEANT FOR THE GREEKS : 
II: PHASES oF GREEK ART AND CRITICISM OF SOURCES 
Ill: THe Masgor Arts: ToOREUMATOLOGY AND. DECORATIVE 


PAINTING 
SCHEMA 
PART ONE 
THE AIM OF GREEK ART. ART AND THE 
CITY 


CHAPTER 

I: THE ARTIST AND THE PUBLIC. TRADITION : 
Close collaboration of artist and public.—No break with the 
past.—A gradual, not sudden development.—Apparent 
monotony of Greek art.—Borrowings and plagiarism. 


Il: THE USEFUL AND THE BEAUTIFUL . ; : . 
Innate or acquired sense of beauty.—Utilitarian character of 
Greek art.—No divorce between the useful and the beautiful. 
—Esthetic character of utilitarian articles——Art a social 
language. 


III: ART AND RELIGION . : : ‘ . : ; 
Magic and religious réle of art at its origin.—Art the servant 
of official religion, a form of cult of the gods and the dead.— 
Development of religious feeling reflected in art —Influence of 
art on religion.—But religion did not fetter the Greek artist. 


IV: ART AND THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION 2 ; 
The political constitution of the Greek city determines the 
character of art.—Collective expression of the city.— 
Contrast with the art of Oriental monarchies. 


V: ART AND HISTORICAL EVENTS . nate C2 ‘ : 
Art the reflection of historic events——The Persian wars and 
their influence.—The esthetic ideal tributary to historic 
events. 

Vv 


13 


37 


41 


45 


51 


62 


69 


vi CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 


VI: ART AND SOCIAL RANK . ‘ : é 81 
Art the reflection of different social stations—The means of 
expressing these differences.—Aristocratic character of Greek 
art. 

VII: ART AND MANNERS : « > 3 


Gymnastics and its importance for art.—Artistic nudity. 
Equilibrium between body and head.—Athletic statuary.— 
Virile character of Greek art.—The age preferred by the 
artist; obsession by the youthful and athletic type.—The 
child, the aged, gods, woman. 


VIII: ART: ITS CIVIC TEACHING. SOCIAL ROLE OF THE 
ARTIST ; : ; ; : : ‘ - 106 
Theological teaching, patriotic teaching, expression of national 
feeling.—Ro6le of the artist in Greek society. 


IX: TRANSFORMATION IN THE SOCIAL CHARACTER OF 
GREEK ART . é » 110 


The social art of the 5th century.—Transformation in the 
4th century and in Hellenistic times.—Court art.—Inter- 
nationalism.—Levelling of classes—Triumph of individual- 
ism.—Emancipation of the artist—Luxury and pleasure.— 
Increase in part played by woman.—Humanization of the 
gods.—Realism of art.—Scepticism.—Rupture with national 
sentiment.—Loosening of bonds between the useful and the 
beautiful. 


PART TWO 


AGENTS FOR THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF 
ARTISTIC AIMS. GROUPS OF ARTISTS AND 
ARTISTIC PERSONALITIES 


I: ETHNIC GROUPS . : ? : . ‘ ; ring eb! 
The three ethnic groups: Ionians, Dorians, Attics. 
II: IONIAN ART : ; ~ 124 


Ionian civilization.—Characteristic features of Ionian art.— 
Aigean tradition. — Relations with the East. — Marble 
technique and technique of hollow bronze casting.— 
Typical forms of Ionianism: costume, stele, Ionic order, carya- 
tid, frieze-—Study of drapery and anatomy.—Predilection 
for the feminine figure.—Grace, elegance, charm.—Ionian 


realism.—Persistence of the Ionian spirit throughout Greek 
art. | 


III: DORIAN ART ‘ : : * é : : 
The new spirit brought by the Dorian invaders.—The 
‘* Doric”? order.—The metope.—Symmetry, rhythm, equi- 
librium, alternation, opposition.—Number.—Abstraction.— 
Geometrical character.—Tendency to simplicity and sobriety. 
—Strength and vigour.—Predilection for the masculine 
figure and for nudity, musculature, and bronze. 


139 


CONTENTS vil 


OHAPTER PAGE 
IV: RECONCILIATION OF THE TWO TENDENCIES. . 148 


Reciprocal influence of the Ionian and Dorian currents. 
Predominance of one or the other of them.—Their reconcilia- 
tion in Attic art. 


V: ATTIC ART . : : ° ‘ . 150 


Difference from Ionian and Dorian art.—Mingled grace and 
strength.—lIonian influence in the 6th century.—Dorian 
influence from the year 500.—Harmonious fusion of ten- 
dencies proper to Ionians and to Dorians.—Artistic pre- 
ponderance of Athens.—Innate feeling for proportion. 


VI: LOCAL SCHOOLS . ‘ : : : é ° . 156 
Their role in archaic times.—Difficulty of distinguishing 
local schools.—Their decreasing importance as time went on 
and the growing importance of individual schools. 


VII: ARTISTIC INDIVIDUALITIES . . : 


The artist and his growing personality.—Difficulty of tracing 
the works of Greek artists.—Differences of temperament: 
traditionalists, innovationists; repose and action; realists and 
idealists; spiritualists and materialists; preference for deli- 
cacy or strength, for Ionianism or Dorianism, etc.—Need for 
distinguishing these variants. 


159 


PART THREE 
REALIZATION. TECHNICAL PROBLEMS 


I: THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF ART AND THE CHOICE 
OF MATERIAL . : ‘ a MEE : : on LG? 

The temple; the Doric and Ionian orders; the Corinthian 
capital.—Decoration of the temple, metopes, friezes, pedi- 
ments.—Statuary.—Figurines.—Reliefs.—Painting on large 
scale.—Vase painting.— Correlation between these branches of 
art.—Preponderance of sculpture over painting, of line over 
colour.—Choice of materials —Marble.—Bronze.—Chrysele- 
phantine statuary, and combinations of material and colours. 
—Clay and soft materials—Reasons dictating choice of 
material.—Mutual reaction of one material on another. 


II: POSE : : ‘ : ‘ ‘ , : : Sd WE 
Regression after the Dorian invasion.—The primitive schema, 
its aspect, meaning, and indeterminateness.—Frontality.— 
Inexpressive character of gestures.—Technical constraints.— 
Progress.—Archaic types: Kouros and Kore, seated figures, 
ete.—Monotony of type and how it helped the artist.— 
Greater freedom of pose in drawing.—The conventions of 
drawing.—Frontal statues, and statues inspired by drawing, 
their difference.—Introduction of movement into sculpture in 
the round.—Fleeting attitudes and their truth.— Breaking of 
frontality convention, variety in pose and gesture.—Effort to 
achieve rhythm; chiasmus.—Torsion in pose.—Achieve- 
ment of foreshortening.—Abandonment of conventions.— 
Infinite variety of subject.—Active poses of the 5th century. 
—Supported poses of the 4th century, and raising of the hip; 
causes of this change.—Pathos in pose.—Complicated and 
contorted pose of the Hellenists.—Hellenistic complexity. 


Viil CONTENTS 


OHAPTER 


III: ANATOMY . : ‘ : . : . 


IV: 


Originality of this achievement of Greek art.—Aigean muscu- 
lature.—Artistic character of Greek anatomy. ‘The living 
model in the open air; studio models and academic work.— 
Greater progress effected by sculpture than by painting.— 
The problems to be solved.—Observation and rendering of 
detail; e.g., chest, abdomen, profile——Correct situation | of 
detail.—Correct size and form of detail—Linear delineation 
and modelling.—Lack of repercussion of action—Clumsy 
synthesis of different parts.—Breaking of frontality conven- 
tion and correlative progress in anatomy.—Twisting move- 
ment.—Adaptation of musculature to the subject.—Char- 
acter of 5th-century musculature.—4th-century muscula- 
ture, its pictorial and picturesque aspect.— Hellenistic 
musculature and realism, scientific anatomy and emphasis. 


DRAPERY . : ‘ , : . 


Originality of this achievement of Greek art.—Greek dress 
and its possibilities of expression.—Drapery and the female 
figure.—Rendering of folds, their variety and contrast.— 
The substance and fall of stuffs.—Union of drapery and figure. 
—Transparent drapery.—Opaque drapery.—Reciprocal con- 
trasts of figure and drapery.—Adaptation of drapery to 
action.—Moving drapery.—Drapery treated for its own sake. 
—Drapery as a means of psychological expression.—Differ- 
ences between 6th, 5th, and 4th-century drapery. 


V: THE ANALYTIC AND SYNTHETIC VIEW. HARMONY, 


RHYTHM, ‘‘SYMMETRIA,” PROPORTION, COM- 
POSITION . : ‘ : : ; : ‘ 


From analysis to synthesis.—Preference for detail in early 
stages of art.—Lack of co-ordination in the ensemble: drapery, 
monstrous combinations, hair, pose, action, ete.—Efforts to 
achieve synthesis and unity from 500 onwards.—Study of 
rhythm, eurhythmy, and symmetria—Study of proportion, 
the canons.—Elongated proportions.—Squat proportions.— 
Alternation of the two.—General tendency to lengthen pro- 
portions.—The primitive group and its convention—The 
genuine group.—Grouping by alignment.—Grouping in 
volume.—Composition of pediments; efforts after material 
and spiritual unity and symmetry.—Composition of metopes 
and other reliefs —Rule of isokephaly. 


VI. DISTANCE AND ATMOSPHERE AS THEY AFFECT 


THE APPEARANCE OF THINGS. CHIAROSCURO, 
MODELLING, PERSPECTIVE ‘ 


Art and the open air in Greece; correction of optical illusions. 
—Linear drawing, without modelling or shadows.—Early 
efforts after modelling and shading.—Study of perspective. 
—In sculpture, linear drawing in volume; incised and flat 
aspect of early work.—Pictorial conception of modelling in 
Statuary. 


PAGE 
205 


220 


237 


261 


CONTENTS 


PART FOUR 
THE IDEAL AND ITS EVOLUTION 


OHAPTER 


I: SOME ASPECTS OF THE GREEK IDEAL . ° : 


II: 


III: 


IV: 


Anthropomorphic conception of the Greek ideal.—Paucity 
of interest in flora, fauna, or seenery.—Anthropomorphization 
of nature; abstractions——Love of life, and of the vigor- 
ous human body.—Disease, death, Hell.—Sense of the real. 
—Spirit of positivity, limitation and _ finality —Rational 
character of Greek art.—Taste for symmetry, repetition, 
rhythm, etc.—Apparent monotony of Greek art, and its 
variety.—Routine and mechanical repetition.—Sincerity.— 
Feeling for proportion.—Sobriety and simplicity.—Desire for 
perfection.—Asthetic feeling. 


EVOLUTION OF THE IDEAL : . ‘ 


The stages of Greek art.—Co-existence of phases.—Renais- 
sances. 


FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS TO THE END OF THE 
5TH CENTURY. ELABORATION OF TECHNIQUE 
AND IDEAL . ‘ ° 


Primitive barbarism.—Choice of material.—Architectural 
creations.—Sculpture in the round and in relief.—Painting on 
the grand scale; black-figured vase painting.—Technical 
limits and conventions.—Social, religious, and patriotic ideal. 
—Glorification of the human body.—From geometrical motifs 
to mythology.—_Study of anatomy and drapery.—Subjects. 
—The archaic smile, and the sad expression.—Ionian, 
Dorian, and Attic Greece. 


THE 5TH CENTURY. TECHNICAL MASTERY, 
IDEALISM 2 : 


Progress in the Doric order.—Adoption of Ionic order on the 
Continent.—Birth of. the Corinthian capital Break with old 
conventions.—Seeing things synthetically.—Artistic personali- 
ties.—From the particular to the general, and the desire for 
abstraction.—Hellenic profile—Serenity of the faces.— 
The dogma of ‘‘ Greek serenity.”-—Expression on 5th-century 
faces.—Atticism. 


V: THE 4TH CENTURY. BEGINNINGS OF REALISM 


VI: 


Transformation in Hellenic mentality.—Humanization of 
art.—Diminishing distinctions between schools.—Effort to 
achieve the accidental and the individual.—Expression: 
sentimentalism of Praxiteles, pathos of Scopas.—Differences 
between the sexes and between different ages.—Birth of 
portraiture.—Transitional period. 


THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD. APOGEE OF REALISM 


Displacement of artistic centres——Decline of Athens.— 
Triumph of realism.—Efforts to achieve illusion.—Scientific 
anatomy and pathological blemishes.—Pathos.—Portraiture. 
—The child.—Old age.—The idea of death.—Ethnic types.— 
Animals.—Still life—Feeling for nature.—Complexity of 
Hellenistic art.—Bad taste. 


PAGE 


299 


302 


308 


317 


322 


x CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
VII: THE DECLINE. EXHAUSTION OF CREATIVE 
POWERS. . . 334 
A single theme reveals the diane ideal. oka 
between realism and idealism.—Exhaustion of imagination.— 
Return to the past.—Analogous cycles in art of other lands; 
coincidence. 


CONCLUSION 


THE PLACE OF GREEK ART IN THE HISTORY 
OF CIVILIZATION 


1: WHAT GREECE OWES TO FOREIGN ART. 337 


Aigean heritage.—Borrowings from the East: Mesopotamia, 
the Hittites, Lydia, Ionia, Egypt, Phoenicia.—Decline in 
Oriental influence as time goes on.—The national reaction of 
classicism.—Triumph of the Oriental spirit in the Hellen- 
istic period and subsequently.—The Oriental spirit in Chris- 
tian art and in modern art. 


: WHAT GREECE HAS GIVEN TO THE OLD WORLD 
AND THE NEW. : . 844 


Instinctive originality of Create ate tranatoeiseee of 
borrowed elements.—Predominance of Greek art.—Its in- 
fluence on various countries in antiquity.—Its influence on 
modern art. 


3: THE GREEK MIRACLE AND GREEK PERFECTION 350 


BIBLIOGRAPHY . ; : : : ‘ ° ; : 355 
INDEX . : ; : : : : : : J 365 


LIST OF FIGURES AND PLATES 


FIGURES 
FIG; PAGE 
1. Myron. ATHENA AND MARSYAS . i ; . 84 
2. SILENI, ON A VASE By DouriIs : . . : 84 
3. HERACLES FIGHTING ANTZUS, ON A VASE BY EUPHRONIUS . 85 
4. IONIC COLUMN OF THE TEMPLE OF EPHESUS. 6TH CENTURY. 129 
5. PRIMITIVE IONIC CAPITAL (DELOS) . : é . 180 
6. PRimiTivE Ionic CAPITAL (ATHENS). : ; “? 480 
7. CAPITAL OF THE COLUMN OF THE NAXIANS (DELPHI). 6TH 
CENTURY. ; r m : j ut Yeo 
8. Arcuaic Ionic CAPITAL (DELOS). 6TH CENTURY . . 180 
9. Arcuaic Ionic CAPITAL (ATHENS). 6TH CENTURY . .. Isl 
10. FUNERARY STELE ON AN ATTIC 5TH CENTURY LECYTHUS . 133 
11. MEGARON AT TrIRYNS ? : ‘ P wie aaah k 
12. PLAN OF THE PARTHENON . 2 ; ‘ cf 141 
13. PLAN OF THE ERECHTHEUM . , j j . 142 
14, PRIMITIVE PROJECT FOR THE ERECHTHEUM . , ) 142 
15. RHODIAN VASE, GEOMETRIC STYLE. DECORATION IN 
METOPES . ‘ ‘ . ; ‘ . 148 
16. RECEDING PROFILE ON A 6TH-CENTURY IONIAN VASE . - 4163 
17. ‘*‘ HELLENIC ’’ PROFILE ON A LECYTHUS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE 
5TH CENTURY r ; : ; : . 158 
18. IONIC CAPITAL IN THE ERECHTHEUM : ; . 168 
19. CORINTHIAN CAPITAL OF THE THOLOS AT EPIDAURUS, BEGIN 
NING OF THE 4TH CENTURY ‘ ‘ ‘ . 168 
20. ProtTo-ATTIC HYDRIA OF ANALATUS. DETAIL. 7TH CENTURY 180 
21. FRONTALITY. TENEA Kouros : : ‘ Pee 
22. STATUE OF CHARES. 6TH CENTURY. THE ARCHAIC SEATED 
TYPE ‘ r ' . : : » 184 
23. Myron’s DIscoBoLos 2 : é : - 186 
24. PISISTRATIDAE PEDIMENT OF THE HEKATOMPEDON IN 
ATHENS. ATHENA AND ENCELADUS i A . 187 
25. EPHEBUS 698 OF THE ACROPOLIS (ATHENS). BROKEN 
FRONTALITY . . : . . - 189 
26. EPHEBUS ON A CUP ATTRIBUTED TO ONESIMUS ies - 190 
27. Pompretr APOLLO, NAPLES MusEuM. Copy OF AN ORIGINAL 
OF ABOUT 450 B.C. ‘. : ; oe RD 
28. ATHLETE BY STEPHANUS. Copy (END OF 1ST CENTURY B.C.) 
OF 5TH CENTURY ORIGINAL, VILLA ALBANI, ROME + aod 
29. BRONZE FIGURINE (LOUVRE). FIRST HALF OF THE 5TH 
CENTURY . = ‘ : : . Pane bi 


30. THE DORYPHOROS OF POLYCLITUS. CHIASMUS 2 . 194 
xi 


Xi LIST OF FIGURES 


FIG, 
31. WestmAcotr Eruesus (BRITISH MusEUM). KyYNISKOS OF 


PouycuiTus (?). CHIASMUS : ‘ ; . 
32. Tue BERLIN AMAZON. POLYCLITUS . , : . 
33. APOLLO SAUROCTONOS OF PRAXITELES j ‘ . 
34. SATYR IN REPOSE BY PRAXITELES . é : : 
35. Tue Otympi1A HERMES By PRAXITELES d 3 . 
36. DANCING M2@NAD (BERLIN) . ; - : . 
37. Proion AND NAUCRATIS TORSOS. 6TH CENTURY . Facing 


38. RuopES Kouros. 6TH CENTURY . : : 99 
39. PTOION TORSO. 6TH CENTURY c A < 9 
40. 6TH-CENTURY KOUROI : 4 & ° : 
41. RECLINING FIGURES OF THE AXSGINA AND PARTHENON PEDI- 
MENTS . : . : f . 


42, METOPE OF THE TREASURY OF THE ATHENIANS, DELPHI . 
43. Toe Samos Hera (LOUVRE). 6TH CENTURY : . 
44, EAST PEDIMENT AT OLYMPIA. APOLLO : , . 
45, DETAIL FROM THE NORTH FRIEZE OF THE PARTHENON : 
46. FRIEZE FROM THE MAUSOLEUM AT HALICARNASSUS (3855-850 

B.c.). DETAIL (BERLIN) . : P é . 
47. MaNADS. DETAIL ON A CUP BY HIERON (BERLIN) . f 
48. RELIEF OF THE ATHENA OF THE PILLAR, ATHENS ; ; 
49. THE HyDRA PEDIMENT. CLOSE OF THE 7TH CENTURY. 

ATHENS ACROPOLIS ; : : j ; 
50. DETAIL ON A CUP BY DouRIS (BERLIN MUSEUM) ; ‘ 
51. PEDIMENT OF THE CORFU TEMPLE. 6TH CENTURY . ; 
52. WEST PEDIMENT OF TEMPLE OF APHZA, ALGINA. ABOUT 

A75 : "i : z ; 
53. WEST PEDIMENT AT OLyMPIA. ABOUT 460 . : ‘ 
54. EAST PEDIMENT AT OLYMPIA. ABOUT 460 . ; ‘ 
55. WEST PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 439-433 A j 
56. PERSEUS AND THE GORGON, SELINUS. 6TH CENTURY. 3 
57. HERACLES AND ATLAS, METOPE AT OLyMPIA. ABOUT 460 . 
58. HERACLES CLEANING THE AUGEAN STABLE, METOPE AT 

OtympiA. ABout 460 . : : ‘ : 
59. HERACLES AND AMAZON. METOPE AT SELINUS. 5TH CENTURY 
60. THE HARPIES TOMB: DETAIL (BRITISH MUSEUM). 6TH 

CENTURY . , A ; ; : : 
61. OrviETO CRATER (PARIS) ‘ : : i : 
62. BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS. NAPLES ARYBALLUS : ‘ 
63. SYMMETRICAL COMPOSITION ON A GREEK VASE. 5TH CENTURY 
64. PRIMITIVE PLAN OF THE PROPYLZA . ; ‘ . 
65. 6TH-CENTURY KouROI AT NAUCRATIS AND RHODES . Facing 
66. WARRIOR, ON A 6TH-CENTURY VASE . ; : ; 


PAGE 


195 
198 
199 
199 
200 
202 
208 
208 
208 
211 


214 
216 
224 
230 
231 


2337 
235 
240 


251 
252 
253 


253 
254 
254 
256 
257 
257 


258 
258 


259 
266 
267 
290 
291 
208 
314 


LIST OF PLATES xill 


PLATES 


PLATE FACING PAGE 
I. Gorgon. ATHENS (AcROPOLIS MUSEUM). 6TH CENTURY 52 
II. DeLpH1. TREASURY OF THE ATHENIANS. FIRST QUARTER 
OF THE 5TH CENTURY ‘ 2 : seta (4 
III. DRAPED FEMALE STATUE (BERLIN). 5TH CENTURY : 
Fregus APHRODITE (LOUVRE). SECOND HALF OF THE 5TH 


CENTURY : : ‘ : , . 94 

IV. Mepic1 APHRODITE (UFFIZI, FLORENCE) : «O68 
V. ANDROMEDA AND PERSEUS (CAPITOL. MUSEUM, ROME) . 114 
VI. HerzuM AT OLYMPIA . ; ; ‘ . 140 
VII. Sunrum Kouros (ATHENS MuSEUM). 6TH CENTURY . 182 


VIII. Fic. 37. PTOION AND NAaucrRATIS Torsos. 6TH CENTURY 
Fic. 38. Ruopes Kouros. 6TH CENTURY 
Fic. 39. PTorion Torso. 6TH CENTURY 
Fic. 65. Kouror AT NAUCRATIS AND RHODES. 6TH CEN- 


TURY (see page 309) ‘ : - 208 

IX. Hest1a GIusTINIANI (TORLONIA Museum, RoME). ABOUT 
460 . Z i y : » mae 
X. HEAD OF THE OLYMPIA HERMES BY PRAXITELES . - 268 

XI. APHRODITE AND ADONIS GROUP (SOFIA MUSEUM). 
HELLENISTIC PRAXITELIAN . : é ~ 270 

XII. BLACK-FIGURED ATTIC AMPHORA. . BIRTH OF ATHENA 
(GENEVA MUSEUM) . F , . 804 

XIII. HEAD oF PTOION Kouros (NATIONAL MUSEUM, ATHENS). 
6TH CENTURY : % R . 3806 

XIV. THE HELLENIC PROFILE. FEMALE HEAD FROM WEST 
PEDIMENT AT OLyMPIA. ABOUT 460. . - 310 

XV. TERRA COTTA HEAD FROM PHOCIS (BERLIN MUSEUM). 5TH 
CENTURY ‘ : : . F « 812 


XVI. RED-FIGURED CUP, 5TH CENTURY. BANQUET SCENE 
(GENEVA MusEuM). Hrap or PENELOPE (TERME 


MusEvum, Rome) ; : ‘ : . 3816 
XVII. FEMALE HEAD FROM TEGEA. 4TH CENTURY . . 818 
XVIII. Heap or TEGEA HERACLES. STYLE OF SCOPAS. 4TH 

CENTURY 3 ; ‘ ‘ ; . 3819 


XIX. HEAD OF THE DELPHI AGIAS BY LYSIPPUS. 4THCENTURY 320 
XX. Locras (AIN) Hermes (GENEVA MUSEUM). BRONZE 

STATUETTE, LYSIPPIAN STYLE 4 : - 821 

XXI. CHEvRIER Dionysus (GENEVA MUSEUM). 4TH CENTURY 3824 
XXII. HELLENISTIC PATHOS. HEAD OF THE LAOCOON (VATICAN 
MusEuUM). HEAD OF THE GIANT CLYTIUS, PERGAMUM 

FRIEZE . ‘ ; : : - 825 
XXIII. HELLENISTIC PATHOS. THE SO-CALLED DyING ALEX- 
ANDER (FLORENCE). HEAD OF THE PERGAMUM 

APHRODITE (BERLIN) : . . . 3826 

XXIV. SLEEPING HERMAPHRODITE (UFFIZI, FLORENCE) . . 827 


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FOREWORD 


PURE ART 
LEISURE AND PLAY 


Art does not date from the Greeks, but, under the Greeks, art in 
diverse forms grew and blossomed amazingly so that one may say 
of this privileged people that they were the creators of pure art. 
Thus it is here, perhaps, that we should try to distinguish, by 
linking wp this magnificent achievement with the data of the 
preceding period,’ what is the role of art in the evolution of 
humanity. 


It is of capital importance for the understanding of life and 
history to observe that the activities of living beings, of all living 
creatures, presents itself under two opposite aspects: Work and 
Play. 

Life, in whatever degree, is for ever at work—whether it be the 
life individual or the life collective or the infinitely varied and 
increasingly complex combinations of both. Life travails that 
it may maintain itself—that is to say, in order to repair itself 
(since there is wear and tear) and in order to protect itself 
(since every living thing is menaced to greater or lesser extent by 
its physical environment and by other living beings). Life 
labours, too, that 1t- may expand if—as we have postulated in 
preceding volumes—it is essentially a tendency, an endeavour, 
anisus. It grows by effort and it grows by union. 

1 See De Morgan, ‘‘ Prehistoric Man,” pp. 174 ff. on “* Dress and 
Ornament,” and pp. 185 ff. on *“‘ The Arts of Prehistoric Peoples”? ; 
Moret, ‘‘ From Tribe to Empire”’; and Delaporte, ‘‘ Chaldzo-Assyrian 
Civilization,” the Foreword, and the chapters on Babylonian and Assyrian 
Art ; Glotz, ‘‘ The Aigean Civilization,” the Foreword, and the chapters 
on ** Games”? and “* Art.” Magdalenian art, as we know, was blotted out 
completely, to humanity’s “‘ great loss.” fgean art, rich and varied, 
more realistic than the arts of the East, less concerned, too, with practical 
preoccupations and more individualistic, exercised a considerable influence, 
for long unsuspected, on the art of those Greeks who caused the downfall 
of 4gean civilization. But Greek art has superior qualities : ‘‘ All that 
went before it was in reality merely the incubation period that led to this 
esthetic zenith’? (De Morgan, ‘* Les Premiéres Civilisations,”’ p. 499), 

XV 


xV1 FOREWORD 


Work has a practical object in view—utility. But progress 
in life, won by work, brings about escape from pressing need, 
creates the possibility of leisure and liberates energy for play. 
To work is to maintain life. To play is to enjoy it.' 

All organization, all progress in life tends more and more 
to enfranchise it from immediate want, to procure it leisure— 
not merely a passive leisure of relaxation, of repose and slumber, 
but an active leisure for enjoyment. 

In leisure, from the moment that there is energy available 
(the invalid has leisure but he does not play) this energy tends 
to employ itself for the pleasure of so being employed, for the 
relief of thus expending itself” The surplus energy permits 
of active play. And just as there are primordial needs which 
are the expression of elementary life—the need for luxury which 
is the expression of the wmcrease and perfecting of life—so is 
there a need for play which results from the very enfranchisement 
from need and which is the luxury of life par excellence. 

It must be noted, moreover, that this theoretical opposition 
of work and play is not realized absolutely except in the case of 
immediate and pressing need. Work and play, interest and 
disinterested enjoyment may be blended in an infinitude of 
different ways and in infinitely variable quantities.° 

All this, however, is quite general in character. Our aim 
was once again to link history with life. These principles stated, 
we must pass on to the particular consideration of man and of 
human society. 


One might well say, without being paradoxical, that the 
history of human society 1s the history of leisure, of the progress 
of leisure, of its distribution among different social classes, and 
of its utilization. 

Of its distribution.—Political institutions, like economic 
organization, tend toward the general good of society, to the 
lightening of the difficulties and hardships of the life of the 
group ; but those who hold power for the general good tend to 
use it for their own good and to relieve themselves of labour. 


1 Work, labour, travail, from tripalium, a three-staked instrument of 
torture. To travail—to toil, to struggle, to fashion—make a continuous 
effort. Leisure, from licere, to be allowed to . . ., to have freedom. 

2 Cf. the ~éBapors of Aristotle. 

8 See K. Groos, ** Les jeux des animaux,” pp. 301, 308; and Grosse, 
** Les débuts de l’Art.”’ 


FOREWORD xvii 


Whereas, those, on whom labour presses heavily, clamour for 
their share of the good things of life and make efforts—efforts 
which even culminate in revolutions—to win what is at bottom 
the right to leisure. 

Of its utilization—The modalities of play are virtually as 
many as the powers of the individual ; and, as a fact, there is the 
play of the physical organs, the play of the different senses, and 
the play of the various higher faculties : everything which has 
seemed to protect and maintain life has afterwards served in its 
expansion. And the aspects of play are extremely varied 
according to the stages of historic evolution, and to the period 
of the life of the individual. 

In the first place we must establish a distinction between 
play and games—which one sees arise among animals, but which 
— only come to full development in human societies. 

Play is the spontaneous employment of the living being of 
superabundant energy. Games are practical exercises intended 
to organize the employment of leisure. And it is under the form 
of games—and then of arts—that play may be brought under 
the influence of society, perhaps even institutionalised although 
responding to a need originally entirely individual : further on 
we shall emphasize this important point a propos art. 

If play, as it has been said, is a transitional form between 
practical actiwity and activity that 1s purely contemplative or 
esthetic, between life and art, games equally bear the wmprint 
of this twofold character. Children and adolescents who bring 
their physical nature into play, at the same time that they “‘ give 
at vent’ have also the satisfaction of proving their energy and 
of exercising their powers whether on their own bodies, on the 
outside world, on things or on other beings. Physical games, 
and also most kinds of games which have been invented or 
mstituted for young people or adults, produce—actually tend to 
produce—some practical advantage along with the pleasure of 
playing. Physical games are a simulation of work which 
enables real work to be done more easily ; they assure victories 
without the practical necessity to vanquish, yet not without 
facilitating ulterior victories. To conquer difficulties for 
pleasure and at the same time for profit is the aim of games and 
of competitions of every kind. A thousand examples could be 


1 See K. Groos, work quoted, p. 303; also Ebbinghaus, ‘‘ Précis de 
Psychologie,” p. 283. 
b 


XVili FOREWORD 


cited to illustrate the proposition that a useless expenditure of 
energy is often crowned with utility. 

Many games—such as the gymnastic games of the Greeks— 
many periodic and regulated festivals, entail the appearance of 
a special element whose role, in play, is neither active nor direct— 
the public. One cannot say that this role is purely contemplative 
because divers interests—religious and civic in the case of the 
Greek games—may be mixed with the pleasure of being a spec- 
tator. But there is the pleasure, to lesser or greater degree, of 
the spectacle—a pleasure that 1s properly cesthetve. 

This term—ceesthetic pleasure—employed by some for all 
pleasure in play, we would rather reserve for contemplative 
enjoyment ; it even seems to us that it is preferable to restrict 
its use to that contemplative enjoyment linked with the arts. Is 
it not better, in fact, to distinguish the emotion born of the games 
of the circus, of the combats of gladiators and of bull fights, from 
those created by an artistic spectacle? The reality of flowing 
blood—in a cruel game—and the illusion of pain in the drama 
produce pleasures of the same kind but of different quality. 

Let us then distinguish the arts clearly, and, among the arts, 
let us further distinguish those which are major and those which 
are minor, or in other words the occasional or decorative arts 
from those that are arts by intention. 


The proper object of art is to give cesthetic pleasure to the 
senses and the higher faculties, through the medium of techniques 
—which are the arts—by various elements borrowed from the 
real and variously combined spatially or in time,' or in both space 
and time at once. That which brings about this kind of pleasure 
is the beautiful; the aim of art is to manufacture at ; ut regulates 
the permanent sources of enjoyment in the highest order of play. 

Art has two sides: it utilizes the surplus energy of those 
whose senses are most highly developed, whose faculties are the 
richest, and who, if one can so put it, are bursting with vigour 
and who take pleasure in creative acts ; it utilizes this surplus 
for the contemplative enjoyment of those who have the same 
aptitudes and needs to a lesser degree and who are quite unable, 
without the first, to satisfy their being’s hunger. There is the 
artist, and the work of art; and there is the amateur of art, and 


1 Th. Ribot distinguishes the Static Arts from the Active Arts. 


FOREWORD xis 


esthetic contemplation. The differences between the two should 
be clearly expressed in terminology. 

But art, in the beginning, was never completely dissociated 

from the useful: it was superimposed on it. Man began his 
career as artist by ornamenting objects that were necessary to him, 
by embellishing the décor of a life which escaped from rigorous 
need. 

We believe that our distinguished collaborator, W. Deonna, 
who has given much thought to the nature of art and its be- 
ginnings, is both right and wrong when he leans to the identifica- 
tion of technical inventions, civilization in general, and art 
properly so-called, and when he confounds or classes together 
practical ‘‘ arts”? and esthetic arts in a single “‘ archeology” 
understood in an extraordinarily wide sense. The word art, 
originally combination—from which we get artisan and artist— 
ought to have given us artial and artistic. In our view, one 
should not say—there is no point in saying : ‘‘ A creator, fashion- 
ing raw material, whether of the most practical techniques or of 
the fine arts, man is an artist, the author of art... . The day 
when he freed himself from servitude to nature in order to react on 
materials is an important date in the history of humanity—the 
day when art was first invented.’' Doubtless art applied itself 
at first; and continued to apply itself, to the products of human 
industry : there is none the less an intimate and radical difference, 
in human inventions, between those destined to increase the 
commodities of life and those which set a-playing some one or 
other, or more than one, of man’s faculties. 


The preceding volumes have shown us that man, from the 
moment the conditions of his existence permitted him to do so, 
diffused around him the possibilities of enjoyment that he might 
continually draw from this ever ready source. Articles of use 
may possess a pleasing value: ‘‘ In primitive times, when the 
hard necessity of the struggle for existence dominated everything, 
this special value is hardly to be discerned. But little by little, 
as success in this struggle for life came to him, and as man 
became possessed of leisure, he began to pay attention to ut. He 
noticed that the means of combat, which at first had for him merely 


1 W. Deonna, “ L’ Archéologie, son domaine, son but’? (‘‘ Bibl. de 
Phil. scientifique,” 1922), p.'71; Cf. pp. 75-76. 


xx FOREWORD 


the value of a means of nourishment or of a weapon, was also an 
agreeable thing independently of its usefulness.”' Gradually 
all useful articles rose in his estimation in that they could be made 
the instruments of enjoyment. 

Very likely he began with his body—following thus the 
example of lower animals which know the luaury and pride of 
adornment. The male animal seeks to make a conquest of the 
female by colour, sound and odour: in this force of desire there 
is a blossoming of life and an effort to achieve beauty.2 In man, 
costume, weapons, utensils, furniture, dwelling—all are adorned, 
and each one becomes an “‘ object of art.’* The domain of the 
arts known as minor, decorative or applied—and which we define 
as occasional arts—is.immense. Architectwre—born of the tree 
and the cavern—which is considered a major art, no doubt 
because of the development it has received and the various 
elements embraced by it, nevertheless retains its character as a 
useful craft: ‘‘ It might strictly be assimilated to an extension 
“of clothing.’”* 

When we seek the historical origin, the germinating point, 
so to speak, of the various ornaments and successive embellish- 
ments which human life has acquired, we may well come upon, 
indeed, we are bound to find, as a rule, practical intentions and 
social circumstances. Tattooing, the painting and cutting of the 
body, feather plumes and animal skins, no doubt correspond 
to tribal distinctions, to rank, religious belief, and magical ends. 
Stull, there may have been in all this a more or less vague cesthetic 
element from the very beginning : ‘‘ To the mythical and social 
motives for the decoration of the person is added the attraction 
ewercised by strong colours easily to be seen, such as the 

1 Ebbinghaus, work quoted, p. 288. 

2 See Espinas, ‘‘ Les Sociétés animales’; K. Groos, work quoted ; 
Ribot, ‘‘ Psychologie des sentiments,” IJ, 10, ‘‘le sentiment esthétique”’ 
(p. 344, Note 2, where he quotes some suggestive lines of Th. Gautier’s : 
** The savage who tattoos himself, who smears himself with red and blue, 


and sticks a fishbone in his nose, is following some confused notion of 
a *); and P. Lacombe, ‘Introduction & I’Histoire littéraire,”’ 
p17. 

8 “ Round and about the arts of the furnisher and costumier there is 
unfolded the brilliant and ever-growing procession of the attendant arts of 
the gold- and silver-smith, the gem-setter and jeweller, the enameller and the 
coach-builder—for the embellishment of carriages, those miniature movable 
houses—of the armourer and the smith, the arts of the oven and the forge, 
and the textile arts’’ (P. Lorquet, “‘ Art et lHistoire,” p. 90). See 
also the entire chapter on the minor arts. 

* Th. Ribot, work quoted, p. 345. 


FOREWORD Xx 


contrast of black and white, of yellow, and above all of red 
which 1s reminiscent of blood.’ And the time comes when 
symbolism fades while the esthetic aim is more and more 
pronounced. 


There are senses to which cesthetic enjoyment is no stranger 
but from which no organized art has evolved because they are too 
closely bound up with the immediate necessities of life ; such are 
taste, touch and sense of smell.”. The nobler senses are those of 
sight and hearing, because these two are linked to the higher 
faculties. From these two proceed not merely the decorative’ 
but the principal arts. Detached—apparenily at all events— 
from utility, they make play with the world of images which 
reflects external reality and with the inner world of feeling. 
Reaching beyond the senses they make their appeal to the highest 
faculties—to wumderstanding, imagination, and sensibility— 
and this is what lends to them their high dignity. 

According as to whether they lean to imitation or expression 
the higher arts form two groups : painting and sculpture on the 
one hand, and the dance and music on the other. Literary ari, 
the richest and most complex of all, has an equal part in both 
imitation and expression. 

The literature of expression—lyrical writing—is closely 
related to those incontestably ancient, and for some people 
primitive, arts, music and the dance. Music and dancing are 
an eatension of the spontaneous expression of overflowing feeling. 
Emotional needs satisfy themselves in regulated manifestations 
of sexual, warlike, or religious signification. Thus song and 
dance not only have their actors but their audience, and this 
audience associates itself with the feelings expressed, extracting 
therefrom cesthetic pleasure. But it also extracts this pleasure 


1M. H. Cornejo, ** Sociologie générale,” vol. IT, p. 261. 

2 We lay claim, nevertheless, to a ‘*‘ culinary art”? and we take great 
pains to satisfy both the sense of smell and of touch. See P. Lorquet, 
Art et Histoire,” pp. 110-12. 

8 Hearing, like sight, has its minor arts, pendants to the decorative 
arts—‘* modulated calls, ditties and chanties, ‘ Cries of Paris,’ and the 
* Ranz des Vaches’ melody of the shepherd.” See P. Lorquet, work 
quoted, p. 96. ony 

4 Cf. Wundt’s distinction between the imitative and the musical aris, 
and Cornejo’s between the constructive and rhythmic arts. See Cornejo, 
work quoted, vol. II, p. 258. 


Xxil FOREWORD 


from another source—from unison, from the rhythm created by 
these sounds and motions." 

Rhythm—which, already exists in the cries and chanties 
which aim at accompanying, facilitating and lessening the 
burden of labour, such as threshing, spinning, weaving and 
sea ditties—constitutes a very important source of enjoyment. 
The arts of form and colour, in their various degrees, and above 
all architecture, evoke the same pleasure by means of symmetry 
and harmony. Here we have the most general element im art, 
common to its most diverse manifestations. But in the subjective 
—by some people called the rhythmic—arts, this element plays a 
larger and more apparent part than in others, because in them 
feeling is stronger and impresses on them more directly this law 
of life itself—unity in variety.” 

The various arts are nowhere in their nner characters com- 
pletely in opposition one to the other, from whatever angle they 
are regarded. The dance and music, which often evoke definite 
circumstances ; lyrical language, which associates itself with the 
events of individual and collective life—are not more strangers 
to the element of imitation? than are painting and sculpture to 
the element of expression. 

But these last have for their object essentially the reproduction 
of the real. And there is a genuine literature of imitation— 
narrative, descriptive, dramatic—which provides us with an 
inexhaustible fount of enjoyment from the unfettered contempla- 
tion and the disinterested knowledge of all the things and creatures 
with which our life is bound up. 

This art which reflects reality and life sometimes follows 
them as closely and as obediently as may be, and sometimes 
amends, recreates and touches them up. Both the imagination 
which reproduces and the imagination which creates, both realism 
and idealism in different fashion, bring about the same satisfac- 
tion, each one as disinterestedly as the other. 

We will no more attempt to deny for the great arts than for the 
minor arts which are obviously linked to utility, that the activity 


1 See Cornejo, ibid., pp. 288, 293; Ribot, work quoted, pp. 336, 338. 
On the origin of musical instruments, see Cornejo, p. 294. 

2 See Ebbinghaus, ‘* Précis de Psychologie,” p. 288. 

3 See G. H. Luquet, “‘ Les débuts de Vart,” in the ‘*‘ Revue du Mois,” 
1920, and ‘* Genése de Vart figuré,” in the ‘*‘ Journal de Psychologie,” 
October and November, 1922; Deonna, “* L’Archéologie,” vol. IJ. Cf. 
V. Chapot, ** Les Methodes archéologiques,” in the ‘‘ Rev. de Synth. hist.,” 
February 1914, p. 138. 


FOREWORD XXili 


of play has issued from practical activity ; and we recognize 
that it is of considerable moment that the genesis of each of them 
should be defined. 
That, for instance, it is possible, nay probable, that totemism 
—which we must not exaggerate—and magic have played a large 
part in the beginnings of the pictorial arts : but that a time came 
when the image, over and above its utilitarian character, tts 
efficacy in conjuring danger, procuring game, or expressing 
veneration, admiration or fear, took on, as an image, the value 
of a thing of beauty. It was the same with literary art. It is 
linked with myth and legend, that is to say, with the beliefs, self- 
interest, loves and hatreds of the group. ‘‘ The important gain 
made by ethnography and folk-lore in the domain of literature 
during these recent years consists in having brought out the fact 
that literary production known as ‘ popular’ is a useful activity 
. especially in its inception it is an organic element and not, 
as has been imagined, a superfluous esthetic activity—a luxury”? :* 
but it increasingly became so.—Thus were produced the higher 
arts—that is to say the techniques in which certain individuals 
exercised exceptional faculties for the sole pleasure of so exercising 
them, and so bringing to others the same exclusive pleasure.’ 


f 
* 


What we are here concerned with 1s the nature of art and the 
part ithas to play: it is therefore beside the povnt to lay stress 
on the specific differences between the arts, and tt would be of 
litile use to try to work out with exactitude the order of their 
succession. All the arts derive from the same source and share 
the same far-off origin because all of them are an expression of the 
diverse faculties of human nature and of the potency of life. 
Complex and synthetic at the beginning (as witness the dance, 
architecture, the epic), even if they were clearly differentiated they 
reacted the one on the other and combined in an infinite variety of 
ways. When, at last, speculation on art began, and when esthetics 
developed out of didactic treatises, a number of different hypo- 

1 See A. Van Gennep, ‘‘ La formation des Légendes,” pp. 14, 16. 

2 * In primitive times art was not a profession ; the creator, even while 
occupied in other ways, produced naturally, spontaneously, as a rose-tree 
yields roses ; it was a superabundance, an overflow. Gradually it became a 
profession, and, the victim of its own glory, it was obliged to produce whether 
tt would or no... . manufacturing works of art as others manufactured 


articles of trade’’: there was a return, to practical interestedness. See 
Ribot, work quoted, p. 364. 


XX1V FOREWORD 


theses were put forward—which were mutually complementary 
rather than exclusive in so far as they dealt more particularly 
with the artist, the public, the work of art itself, or this or that 
branch of art—-which often tended to magnify art, and to hyposta- 
tize it, and all these hypotheses expressed, at bottom, the widening 
and deepening of life through play : play had become complicated, 
diversified, refined, sublimated ; but art is quite simply and un- 
equivocally a game. 

The thesis that would explain this play by society seems to 
us a false one, or at all events confused. Let us revert, a propos 
the arts, to a question which arose in connection with games.* 

There have been attempts to constitute an “ csthetic 
sociology.”” These are legitimate and may bear interesting 

fruit in measure as they show all that society has contributed to 
the development of art and all that art has borrowed from different 
social institutions, or even in so far as they reveal all the social 
element implicit in esthetic feeling, which is the profound echo 
that sociability awakens in the emotions of the individual.® 
On the other hand, such attempts are altogether chimerical in so 
far as they seek to demonstrate that society created art, that, 
for example, society ‘“‘ secreted the epopee.’’* 

Ribot, in his “‘ Psychologie des sentiments,”’ has illustrated 
the umportance of “* cesthetic needs’ in the development of social 
life, without, however, making them social in their origin. 
Lhe examples he quotes confirm our suggested law of three phases.” 
As he puts it, ““ Man is an esthetic animal,” and this is what he 
sets out from: the art which is born of this property of the human 
being goes through a strongly social phase before it becomes 
sharply individualized. But even when we find the most obvious 
and most profound imprint of its environment we must not forget 
that art at its source is human and therefore individual. Art 
springs from the individual and comes back to the individual® 

1 See p. xvii. . 

* The rubric “* Sociologie esthétique”’ appeared in vol. 5 of ‘‘ VAnnée 
Sociologique.”’ 

8 See Guyau, “‘ l’Art au point de vue Sociologique.”’ 

* “Année Sociologique,” vol. XI, p. 784. See vol. V, pp. 578-85, 
Durkheim’s review of Yrjo Hirn’s book, ‘* The Origins of Art, a Psycho- 
logical and Sociological Enquiry,” in which there is too much psychology 
for Durkheim. 

° See the Foreword to **‘ From Tribe to Empire.” 

° Ribot, work quoted, pp. 340 ff. On the réle of individualities see 
a article quoted, in the ‘* Rey. de Synth. hist.,” February, 1914, 
bie 8 


FOREWORD XXV 


Furthermore, this individualism in which it ends is not 
without its dangers, for if it be pushed to extremes the social link 
becomes relaxed and the desire for action weakened. 

Normally, art, because it crowns life and action, contains 
elements that are useful to action, however pure and disinterested 
it may be. The pleasure tt procures may also minister to know- 
ledge and morality. The intellect may be enriched and rendered 
more lucid, the soul strengthened, the entire being brought into 
harmony by the virtue of order and rhythm as a result of art 
when the esthetic enjoyment 1s no more than a memory, just as 
the lungs expand more freely and the muscles are invigorated 
atter physical games. Literature and the fine arts do not ewist 
for education ; nevertheless, they do educate. The humanities, 
the liberal arts—these terms express their essential generousness. 
According to a happy formula, they give pleasure without lust 
- (Abbinghaus), but not necessarily without utility. 

Pleasure without utility, “ art for arts sake,” is putting 
“ life for art” in the place of “* art for life.” The life of pure 
pleasure—diletiantism—is altogether contrary to the deeper 
tendencies of man’s being. He can arrive at making his entire 
existence a game tf he saturates himself with literature and art. 
There are individuals who have completely lost sight of the good 
and the true so obsessed have they been by the desire for cesthetic 
pleasure, and there have been whole classes, and epochs, in which 
this happened. Linked with this constant seeking after the joys 
of art are the gallantries of love, witty talk, the fashionable life 
of society drawing-rooms, the amused onlooking of men, the 
detached contemplation of nature : this sheer play with men and 
things, devoid as it is of any vital enthusiasm or forceful passion, 
is vitiating and in the end may prove lethal. 

The search for what is good and true responds to the tendency 
of a man’s being: the search for pleasure ends in immobility. 
Whatever fundamental analogy there may be between art and 
science—for science, too, is a game; and from the animal stage 
upwards curiosity manifests a surplusage of life, the beginnings 
of enfranchisement—the more disinterested science is, the greater 
become its practical potentialities and its power over things, and 
the more it increases our consciousness of human ends. Science 
seeks Paradise above all. Art can create an artificial paradise 
and cause forgetfulness of life’s aims: uw is then a kind of 
Nirvana. 


Xxvi FOREWORD 


In fine, if art is a symbol of progress and an agency for the 
evolutionary development of humanity, the abuse of art is both 
a sign and a factor of decadence. 


* 
* 


We think that the foregoing considerations are well illustrated 
by this volume. It is not an archeological treatise. Its title 
is not *‘ Greek Art”? but ‘‘ Art in Greece”; and de Ridder 
clearly sets forth tts aim in the introductory pages. 

This aim—to show the part which art has played in the life 
of the Greeks, and the character it took on among them, in such 
fashion as to explain the influence exercised by Greek artists 
on the art of other peoples and later ages—is in harmony with 
his lifelong preoccupations. Greece attracted him from his 
earliest youth, held him, and finally haunted him. Eweavations, 
the editing of catalogues, various undertakings, official functions, 
everything throughout his life was associated with this corner 
of the earth, with this elect people whom he desired to know well 


because he loved them and whom he loved the more in measure - 


as he knew them better. Hence he was immediately tempted 
by the subject I suggested to him. Since everything in his life 
was linked with Greece, his whole life was to be focussed in this 
book. | 

He had sketched the plan of the book in November, 1918. 
Gifted with an extraordinary memory, he had got every detail 
clearly arranged in his head as the result of prolonged thought. 
The war delayed the writing of the manuscript. When I asked 
him to set to work, the book was ready—though not a line of it 
had been written. In response to my call he put down on paper, 
in his neat and elegant handwriting, three chapters, and this 
first draft was practically final. The other chapters are buried 
together with that well-stored and lucid brain in the grave that 
prematurely claimed them." 

I hoped that the precious pages of him who from 1918 to 1921 
had concentrated his thought on this book, that this relic at least 
should not be lost, and I was successful in persuading Deonna 
to undertake the work, preserving these pages as an introduction 
and filling in, in his own way, de Ridder’s framework. 

Deonna’s important labours—for he, too, is an “Athenian” 


1 See J. Chamonard’s notice in the Annuaire for 1922 of the Associa- 
tion of Former Students of the Ecole Normale posed : 


FOREWORD XXV1l 


and a curator of a museum—together with his particular know- 
ledge of Greek archeology, his immense curiosity, his devoted 
efforts to widen the field of archeology and to go back to the 
earliest source of art and to link it up with the other manifestations 
of human activity, rendered his collaboration in “ Evolution 
de L’Humanité ” highly desirable. 

In this book he has not only studied with a penetrating 
ingeniousness every detail of technique but he has forcibly 
brought out the relations of Greek art with social life in all its 
different aspects. He has shown that if the gigantesque art of 
the Oriental peoples corresponds to their monarchical organiza- 
tion, Greek art, which is well-proportioned and anthropomorphic, 
and in which the human personality plays so novel a part, is in 
harmony with the constitution of the city. He has thrown a 
vivid light on the religious origins of this art. Perhaps he may 
sometimes seem to have exaggerated the part played by religion. 
When he declares that art “‘ was for long only a form of cult” 
(p. 57), that Greek art is “* the docile servant of official religion,” 
and that “it keeps this character, which is older in origin than 
any other, throughout tts entire existence ’’ (p. 54), that “‘ religion 
penetrates even the industrial arts destined to practical ends” 
(p. 58), it must be remembered that he likewise lays stress on the 
close liaison between technique and play and that in his eyes the 
entire material life of the Greeks is influenced by cesthetic pre- 
occupations. 

Art exercises an influence on religion even when it ts most 
closely linked with tt, and it moulds religion as much as it 
ministers to and expresses it. And the tume came when art 
freed itself from religion, and, in a general way, “ the dissocia- 
tion of the beautiful and the useful” (pp. 117-8) came about. 
Art blossomed for ttself, and “* individualism triumphs ” (p. 112). 
This ts the return to the individual after the very pronounced 
socialization phase of which we spoke a while back. If art 


became a “social language,” if it established “‘ a communion 
between men,” it is none the less, we repeat, individual in its 
origin. 


At first sight one might be tempted to find a certain contra- 
diction between Deonna and de Ridder. De Ridder, a close 
historian but profoundly impressed by Greek beauty, is above all 
concerned with achievement, perfection—with the Greek “ miracle.” 
There was an epoch “ privileged above all others” in which the 


XXVIll FOREWORD 


Greeks “translated their dreams and chimeras of beauty into 
living reality”; it 1s here that de Ridder would seek the “‘ hall 
mark ” of the Hellenic genius which was to be so deeply umpressed 
on all subsequent art. He deliberately limits the concept of art 
and sees in it a “creation of beauty” destined to satisfy “ one 
of the higher needs of humanity” (p. 8). Deonna declares that 
‘beauty was not an end in itself in Greece,”” but a means to an 
end (p. 49) ; and for him no single form or stage of Greek art 1s 
negligible. Still, if we look close enough there is no more 
than a difference in the point of view and in the proportions im 
which they see the object which divides these two writers. De 
Ridder recognizes that the artist is hardly distinguishable from 
the artisan in the beginning ; while getting his enjoyment out 
of perfection, he indicates what has gone before and what follows 
after. Deonna, more preoccupied with the successive phases of 
evolution, with the historical problem, recognizes no less the 
‘* superior gift” of the Greeks, and brings out equally forcibly 
the essential character of their art—the feeling for life, the ideal 
of a nobly human life, of a balanced and harmonious life, and, 
finally, the taste for order and proportion. Both are in agree- 
ment in portraying Greek art as the“ human” art par excellence, 
the art “* that generalizes” in the words of Henri Lechat.. In 
this, as wn everything she created, the contribution of Greece is 
essentially reason.” | 

Here we are brought up against a problem which confronted 
us mm “‘ Language” in connection with language—the problem of 
progress. Vendryes is inclined to think that we must not see in 
the evolution of languages “‘a steady and continuous advance 


 ** La Sculpture grecque,” p. 143. 
* “ This so noble art is abstract, rational, idealist ; it addresses itself 
more to the intelligence than to the heart ; and with this art we find ourselves 
im the domain of the pure idea of Plato. The fugitive and changing side 
of things is displeasing to it, and for it the only truth is eternal truth,” p.312. 
See also J. Vendryes’ ‘‘ Language,” p. 347 : ‘‘ The Greek tongue is a 
language whose very essence is godlike. ... Itis not a matter of the ideas 
this language has served to express or of its literature, which is an education 
wm wisdom and beauty... . The outward form of the Greek language 
vs in tiself a delight to the soul. The harmony of iis rhythm, the grace of 
us sounds, and the richness of its vocabulary even, are not the most precious 
of its qualities. In the grammatical field, Greck is distinguished above 
all other languages by the precision of its morphemes which renders the word- 
formation so lucid, and the graceful suppleness of its syntax which gives 
to every thought its full value, following its every movement and reflecting 
each fine shade in its transparent depths. Never has a more beautiful 
instrument been fashioned to express human thought.” 


" FOREWORD Xxix 


towards a definite end.” He refuses to take into account any 
relation between languages and degrees of civilization: ‘‘ We 
have no right”’ he says, “to considera rational and abstract 
language, because it happens to be our own [or that of the Greeks], 
as in any way superior to a mystical and concrete one. It is 
entirely a question of two different types of mentality, each of 
which may have its merits. There is nothing to prove that, in 
the eyes of an inhabitant of Sirius, the civilized person’s mentality 
does not represent degeneration”’ (p. 358). Without going to 
quite such lengths of scepticism, perhaps Deonna would be 
disposed to consider the successive forms of art as expressions, 
all equally interesting, of different historical states.’ 

Reason, however, and, in a general way, psychic develop- 
ment, play a part in human life that it 1s impossible to neglect. 
From this point of view it is legitimate to establish degrees in the 
evolution of humanity even in matters relating to its linguistic 
or esthetic activity. 

If we consider the form of a work of art, certain qualities 
heighten cesthetic enjoyment by lending to it rational dignity— 
and it is here that Greek art provided what 1s an eternal model, 
especially during the brief years of the Athenian splendour. If 
we consider the content of a work of art, there are differences in 
the exactitude, the depth, the amplitude of the reproduction of the 
real and in the tendencies this reproduction expresses which 
lend such works an unequal value. Hence diverse potentialities 
of variable number come into play in esthetic enjoyment, and, by 
setting them in motion, the repercussion of the pleasure ea- 
perienced may minister to life to a smaller or greater degree. 
Too much stress cannot be laid on this point, that art, in measure 
as the beings to whom it appeals are complete, must in itself 
be complete in order to give them more lively enjoyment. Every 
great work of art contains an intellectual and moral element 
which is a consequence and source of psychic progress. The 
coincidence of powerful geniuses with a high human ideal gives 
its value and singular efficaciousness to the art of the great 


1 We have shown (in the Foreword to ‘* Language’’) that even in 
Vendryes’ book there is to be found an attenuated form of this thesis. 
See also the discussion at the Société frangaise de Philosophie in the 
Bulletin for November to December, 1922,0n‘* The Progress of Language.” 

2 In ‘‘ Archéologie,” vol. III, ‘‘ Les Rythmes artistiques,”’ Deonna 
suggested *‘ a law of cycles,” discussed by V. Chapot in the already quoted 
article in the ‘* Rev. de Synth. hist.,” pp. 14-17. 


sue FOREWORD 


Hellenic epoch. Art for art’s sake (towards which the succeeding 
period leans)—over and above the momentary pleasure tt evokes— 
may refine taste, but it does not greatly conduce to human progress, 
and from being amoral it may become immoral. 

It would be utterly vain to search the history of art for any 
regular development. ‘* Moderns” are not necessarily superior 
to “ancients.” Peoples and periods have been more or less 
favourable fields for art, and the coming of genius obeys no laws. 
The chef-d’ceuvres of Greece were for long unequal. Yet the 
artistic wealth of humanity was increased by each succeeding 
form and attempt. There was produced alike that sort of 
cumulative technique and the material which, in science, provides 
the needed progress. So long as there are none of those cata- 
clysms in which tradition for the time is broken, those middle 
ages of set-back and fresh beginnings, even tf the artist does not 
create great works, or works equal to those of the past, the mass 
of amateurs of art understand and savour aspects of beauty that are 
ever more and more varied, and the game of art is played with © 
an extraordinary intensity. To browse on idealistic Greek art, 
or realistic Greek art ; to taste of the art of Greece and also all 
that Greece missed and which is to be found in Gothic, in the 
Romantic—the sentiment of the infinite, for instance—this is to 
enjoy incontestable superiority. In art, progress should not 
only be envisaged from the point of view of genius, in the creations 
of the artist, but also from that of the public, in its comprehension 
of the esthetic. 


* 
* 


In our reflection on art in general, on art in Greece, literary 
art is naturally implied. Surprise may therefore be felt that 
this volume is devoted almost exclusively to plastic art. Greece 
shone in literary arts and was at least as original here as in the 
other arts ; she manifested the same qualities, realized the same 
ideal, created simple and noble beauty, and inculcated order and 
proportion in her literary art, and in it she bore testimony to a 
fertility of invention and stored a wealth of observation and ideas— 
by which the plastic arts have benefited. : 

Louis Hourticg, in a study in which he shows that these very 

* On the question of progress see P. Lacombe, “Introduction a 


|’ Histoire littéraire,” book III. Increasing illumination will be thrown 
on all these questions in the volumes of this series which are to deal with art. 


FOREWORD XXxl 


arts respond to needs, and yield pleasures of a different order 
from those of literary art and do not follow a strictly parallel 
line of advance, puts forward the opinion that their progress in 
general was even more precocious: “‘ Far from deriving from 
the book, the work of the sculptor and the painter often preceded 
the literature to which it is likened in the attempt to find therein 
the desired explanation.”' What is true of epochs in which 
sculpture and painting are mature and rich in tradition and 
models would not seem to apply to the early days. There, though 
plastic realizations may have given precision to myth, myths 
preceded its plastic realization.” 

Myths are spontaneous and naive attempts to interpret 
nature and life. ‘‘ Into the empty heaven”? the fertile imagina- 
tion of the poets of Greece “‘ projected a multitude of divine 
beings.” Myth taught the minstrels to see into the soul of 
their characters ; and the passions which drove Agamemnon, 
Diomedes, and Achilles, were first studied in Zeus, Ares and 
Poseidon.’ The anthropomorphism of the earlier Greek poets 
translated, with an efflorescence of physical life, a lively and sharp 
consciousness of the ego, an exalted idea of the human personality, 
a firm confidence in the Novc. The Homeric epopee and the 
poems of Hesiod “ reveal that the representation of life was the 
material most calculated to touch men and to kindle in them 
the impression of beauty.’”* 

Why, then, should literary art be consigned to the background ? 
Just because, in Greece, literary art 1s linked so closely with life 
and thought that every volume of the Greek series is bound to be 
concerned with wt and with writers and their works. If we 
wanted to deal with Greek literature by itself we should be forced 
to much vain repetition and we should be obliged to lay stress 
on highly technical and special details—if we were not merely 
to content ourselves with a dry and useless summary. 

Moreover, we must here make this capital distinction: 
literary history, as it is usually given, embraces two kinds of 

works. The one belongs to literary art and ministers especially 


1 ** La méthode en Histoire de l’art,”’ in the ‘“‘ Rev. de Synth. hist.,”’ 
vol. XXVIII, February, 1914, p. 31. 

2 * Antique statuary issued from Greek paganism, without a doubt ; 
but, conversely, is not Greek paganism in part the creation of artists, as of 
poets?” Of poets particularly, in our view. See Hourticq, itbid., p. 40. 

3 See Ouvré, ** Les formes littéraires de la Pensée grecque,” pp. 17, 50. 

4 M. Croiset, ‘** La Civilization hellénique,”’ vol. I, p. 50. 


Xxxii FOREWORD 


to esthetic pleasure. The other serves various practical ends 
and has no part in literary art except by virtue of supplementary 
qualities, so to speak, from which—as in the decorative arts— 
esthetic pleasure may be derived. 

Oratory, history, philosophy, and those kinds of prose 
emanating from action or speculation, will find their natural 
place in those volumes devoted to political life and thought. As 
for those genres that are really literary—epic (a mixed genre 
which contains everything in embryo, but more especially 
narrative and description), lyric, and dramatic—they issue from 
religion, which itself is associated with the entire life of young 
peoples: and the study of Greek religion evokes many of the 
masterpieces of literature.* 

Perhaps tt would not have been without interest to lay stress 
on these literary “ genres’’ which Greece, in particular, has 
made and on the laws of beauty she formulated—the poetic and 
rhetorical—new vehicles of literary art by which her reason 
hoped to fortify creatwe spontaneity. But we shall find again the 
genres, the canons and the models of Greece in the Alexandrian 
period, again in Rome, and then again in the Renaissance and 
in the classical epoch. 

For the rest we shall have to revert in a general way to the 
diverse forms of art, and we shall see all that humanity owes to 
Greece for having organized the nobler pleasures. 


HENRI BERR. 


1 See vol. XI of the French Series, ‘‘ Le Génie grec dans la Religion.” 


INTRODUCTION 


I 


Tus book is not a history of Greek art. There are many 
in print already, both in French and in other languages, and, 
even if fitted to undertake it, I could hardly treat a subject 
of such importance—for many reasons one of the most 
difficult there is—in a few hundred pages. It would barely 
be possible to give a dry summary gleaned from my prede- 
cessors, savants to whose labours I have gone for guidance, 
and I should not have been able to take into account those 
numberless detailed monographs which, keeping pace with 
new discoveries, ofttimes complete and revise the conclusions 
already arrived at. I shall refer with all the less scruple to 
those general histories of art' which each have their own merit 
and of which France has so generous a share, thanks to 
Collignon? and Perrot.* Thus it will be easy for the reader to 
check what I say and himself to add abundant examples to 
those which I select. 

Neither do I claim to set forth a philosophy of Greek art. 
Not that the subject lacks interest: I know of none more 
interesting nor which more merits the undertaking; but not 
only is it a subject which few could handle, but equally the 
complete initiation that would be necessary, even before one 
could begin to study it, is far from being within the reach of 
everybody. Nothing, indeed, is less clear in most people’s 
minds than their notion of esthetics, and the principle of 
zsthetics is the corner-stone of the whole question. Thus 
the first thing necessary would be for the author and reader 
to understand one another on this essential point, and a 
whole series of abstruse and nice definitions would be required 
to introduce the subject, and however brief one essayed to be, 
however patiently the reader might follow these deductions 
step by step, the hors d’euvre would be in danger of becoming 


11-XXI. °V,LXII-IIl. * XXXVIII, LXXXIV, C, CXLIV. 
1 


2 INTRODUCTION 


the main dish at the feast and the theme itself would fade 
away before those philosophic discussions that would be 
foreign, and in a sense, exterior to it. I may add that, at the 
risk of speaking and arguing about abstractions, nothing 
less would be required in order to check these ideas of zesthetics 
and even merely to verify our definitions, than a most minute 
and thorough knowledge of Greek art. Maybe there is as 
great a contradiction in demanding from a philosopher a 
practical knowledge of monuments as inasking from an archxo- 
logist lucid philosophic concepts, but supposing the two dis- 
ciplines to exist side by side in a person of unusual powers in 
whom the two contraries should be reconciled, it would still 
be impossible to expect such an effort from the average 
person; and, however interesting this delicate problem might 
be, it would hardly seem to be one that could come within 
general knowledge, or even be within the grasp of, or be 
found intelligible by, everybody. 

I would simply seek to discover what art was for the 
Greeks and what were the ideas they entertained about art. 
That they were amazing artists, no one, I think, doubts, 
but what most people want to know is how and why they 
were such wonderful artists, and that is a question that 
cannot be answered without first discovering what art meant 
to the Hellenes and what place it occupied in their lives and 
in the Greek city. If we can get an exact idea of this role, 
and if we can understand what the Greeks thought about it, 
perhaps we shall be better able to understand the essential 
character of their art and what it was that constituted its 
originality and beauty, 

In order to support the demonstrations which I shall 
attempt in the course of this study, illustrated examples 
must be given. Reproductions of sufficient exactitude to 
enable the reader to follow the argument will be provided. 
We shall not restrict our illustrations to a single category 
of monuments, such as statuary, and we shall not limit our 
studies to marble statues; other and more humble examples 
may supply us with more direct testimony, as I shall hope to 
prove, and in a sense will be more characteristic. It must be 
clearly understood, however, that the monuments chosen 
are chosen simply as illustrations; they do not comprise the. 
whole of Greek art, nor are they by any means the principal 


INTRODUCTION 3 


masterpieces. Their rdle is more modest, and in a sense more 
useful; for us they have to take the place of what no longer 
exists in antiquity and to make us understand the beauty of 
that ancient art whose reflection still glows in them as in 
humble disciples who have been near to their master and so 
rendered worthy that we should listen to and venerate them. 


II 


The first question we have to resolve is to define what 
we mean by Greek art, or, what amounts to the same thing, 
to distinguish among those monuments preserved to our 
own times those which really represent Greek art and without 
which we should have no knowledge of its character and main 
qualities. Indeed, it would be quite wrong to imagine that 
all the objects illustrated are in the same degree capable of 
revealing to us the secret of the race, and equally wrong to 
think that art has always been the same at all periods or that 
it has remained unchanged from the beginning until later 
times, unalterable as an entity or as a creation of the reason. 
Had it been so, Greek art, whether or no it has been superior 
to all others, would have differed from them by possessing 
a unique privilege which would have placed it apart as the 
most surprising of exceptions. Everywhere, indeed, among. 
all peoples and in every civilization, just as races are trans- 
formed and modified as the result of wars and conquests or 
by the peaceful influx of foreign elements, so does their art 
change, like their history, and their pictorial and _ plastic 
creations evolve and differ to such an extent that at a few 
centuries’ distance the link between these products of an 
identical soil and population escapes us. Barely 300 years 
separates a Jean Malouel or a Jacques Froment from a 
Fragonard; yet, between the two, what a difference there is, 
not only in talent or technique but in ideals and in the 
manner in which they conceive of art and life! Ifwe did not 
know it otherwise, should we ever have thought of attributing 
to the same people works not only so diverse but so opposite, 
and should we have approved anyone who might attempt 
with a great effort of sophistic ratiocination to join together, 
artificially, these paintings, explaining one by the other and 


4 INTRODUCTION 


seeing in them two links of the same chain or successive phases 
in a single evolutionary scheme ? 

We could evoke in other exotic or antique civilizations 
examples similar to this which France has provided. For 
long Egypt has been thought of as the land of a uniform art, 
where everything was mechanical and regulated, where immu- 
table canons determined representations that were always 
alike, where there was no individual sentiment, and where 
the liberty of the artist was unknown and proscribed, where 
all that was demanded of him was to conform to a narrow 
program and to work it out faithfully and literally down to 
the smallest details. Archeological discoveries since the 
beginning of the 19th century have testified and are still 
testifying year by year that this view was mistaken and was 
only justified by a single moment in Egyptian art, whereas 
gradual changes were transforming it incessantly, and that 
these modifications were due to individual and personal 
efforts or to influences coming from without to which it was 
neither insensible nor a stranger. In the same way the hier- 
aticism of Byzantine art, as we are constantly discovering 
with greater clearness, was greatly exaggerated by critics; 
here, too, when it became possible to distinguish the periods, 
there was seen to be an evolution in which different manners, 
opposite conceptions and diverse techniques, either more 
refined or more imperfect, succeeded one another. So, too, 
at the beginnings of Hindu art, and of Chinese, and Japanese 
art, we perceive and each day we discern more clearly, foreign 
influences succeeding one another and in each particular case 
gradually modifying and transforming the old native stock, 
while a whole succession of incessant efforts, often unfortunate, 
goes on in order to develop a fresh originality; all of them 
external manifestations revealing to us so many living and 
extremely flourishing organisms receiving much from outside 
but assimilating this foreign food and leaving their own 
mark on what they borrow without losing their originality 
and as though they thus paid a forfeit to existence. 

Greek art is neither more nor less immutable than these 
others, and, like them, it has passed through many and 
divers phases. From its origins up to the Byzantine period 
it has undergone continuous evolution and transformation. 
Just as political and historical Greece is as unlike itself as 


INTRODUCTION 5 


can be at intervals of a couple of centuries or even shorter 
periods, so is Greek civilization and art continually under- 
going modification, sometimes for the better, when the 
change means progress, and sometimes for the worse, and then 
Hellas takes the downward path; but whether for good or 
ill, whether we grieve over it or rejoice, this change is always 
going on and is a fact that is not to be denied. Nothing could 
be more interesting than to follow this ceaseless movement 
and to note the successive differences; but neither could any 
study be more difficult because we do not know when to seize 
the psychological moment and because one has to be on one’s 
guard, in seeking to establish it, not to attach too much import- 
ance to passing phases which are but accidental variations. 

For, indeed, the diversity of those monuments which 
alone can serve to reconstitute Greek art is very great. 
Without going back over history, even cursorily—and we have 
already stated that such is not our purpose—we must, if 
only to set a limit to our subject, outline the principal phases. 
For details we must refer the reader to the more comprehensive 
histories already indicated. 

An earlier volume of this series' treated of the art which 
has been denominated Mycenean since Schliemann and Minoan 
since Evans, and to which Dussaud, with greater simplicity 
and justice, would give the title Aigean. Between this 
civilization and the Greece of the 5th or 4th centuries there 

~lies not merely the lapse of a thousand years or more but 
complete change in ideas or conceptions of life. The rare 
merit of the AXgean artists is to have given an amazingly 
realistic and picturesque impression of life with very limited 
means and despite the handicap of conventions which they 
could not, or knew not how to, overcome. There was as 
yet little order in these compositions in which human beings 
and beasts were crowded together at random, and scarcely 
any sense of rhythm or harmony (at all events during the 
primitive and creative period of art), but a lively sense of 
nature and a minute and faithful observation of external life 
together with a true appreciation of effect. This instinct, 
this need, almost, for reality was not altogether unknown 
to the Greeks; the Ionians appear to have come into and 
transmitted the heritage, and even in the classic period such 


1 Glotz, Aigean Civilization. 


6 INTRODUCTION 


humble artisans as Pistoxenus, the painter of vases, bear 
witness that the lesson had not been lost; still it must be 
frankly recognized that in the great period of Greek art, the 
4th century, the qualities which distinguish it and which 
we shall try to define further on are entirely and essentially 
different even in principle. A gulf separates the two worlds, 
and such frail bridges as are thrown across it consist of trans- 
mitted motifs or relationships of details. This is compre- 
hensible if, as it would seem and as has almost been proved to 
be the case, the Cretans were of a different race from the Greeks 
and if two invading waves, coming perhaps from the North— 
the Achzeans and later the Dorians-——flowed one after the other 
over the old stock of Hellas. According to this hypothesis 
the newcomers did learn in the school of the more advanced 
masters with whom the chances of migration had brought 
them into contact, but the pupils modified what they had 
learned, and when a fresh wave of peoples pushed back these 
earlier invaders, there remained nothing, or at all events very 
little, of the precious heritage they had received but had 
assimilated with difficulty and which they were incapable of 
passing on to their conquerors and successors. 

Once the curtain had fallen on this opening scene, not 
long after the commencement of the first millennium, at the 
beginning of the Iron Age and on the threshold of the period 
when the Olympiads begin, Greece historically was but a 
disorganized collection of peoples whose political system was 
unstable, revolutions being frequent, but among whom 
wealthier and more active cities developed as the result of 
trading and before long sent out colonies. These colonies 
and the commercial relations which the Hellenes established 
with the surrounding peoples placed them in contact with 
foreign and more advanced civilizations from which they 
were to learn precious lessons and to receive fruitful teaching. 
The Ionians who were settled on the Asiatic coast and neigh- 
bouring islands preserved some of the Aigean traditions brought 
to them by the backwash of the great tidal wave which swept 
the eastern Mediterranean towards the end of the second mil- 
lennium. These precious fundamental ideas they were able to 
develop, transforming them by contact with the neighbouring 
Babylonian, Hittite, Assyrian, and Egyptian empires; sea- 
going peoples, such as the Cypriots and especially the Pheeni- 


INTRODUCTION 7 


cians, played a part whose importance should not be exag- 
gerated but is not to be denied, in this migration of the forms 
of art and in this succession of exchanges which was to lead 
to the invention of types and motifs. Nearly all the elements 
came from the East and from Egypt, not merely the fabulous 
beasts and some of the legends attached to them, but textiles, 
pottery, ivories, bronzes and even the precious metals which 
were the artists’ material, and, up to a certain point, the 
decorative sense and even the great ideas of ornamentation. 
All these principles, without which Greek art would not be, 
the Greeks gradually transformed and modified; this inert 
and composite matter they animated with a new spirit which 
was their own, and they created out of borrowed material a 
whole new world which was both original and personal. 
Three centuries at least, the 8th to the end of the 5th, 
are consecrated to this slow elaboration, to this apprenticeship 
of the Hellenes who assimilated foreign techniques and made 
of their borrowed acquisitions something of their own which 
was to bear the hall-mark of their race. Discoveries on the 
Acropolis dating from the dawn of the 5th century and at the 
time of the Persian wars permit us to sum up with consider- 
able accuracy that of which these Athenians were capable 
whom an intelligent tyranny had brought to the forefront 
of the Greek world and who, from this time forward, seem to 
have a sense of art and to care for the things of art. 
Excavation has not yielded to us the valuable ex voto 
objects in metal or precious substances which were naturally 
pillaged by foreign invaders, and which, too, were never very 
numerous in Greece, which was both poor and less ostentatious 
in its taste than the Oriental monarchies. On the other hand, 
the abundant discoveries of pottery’ and the little master- 
pieces made by the more skilful artisans such as Kuthymides 
and Euphronius permit us to divine without exactly revealing 
to us the relative point of perfection which was achieved from 
this time onward by great decorative painting.” It was not 
yet master of all its means nor freed from all shackles, but it 
was not far off, since the great works of Polygnotus and Micon, ° 
whose influence was so great on Greek art, came soon after 
the departure of Xerxes. Thenceforward, and after a long 
evolutionary period, whose several successive stages we 
1 CXXIX ff. 2 CXV ff. 


8 INTRODUCTION 


divine rather than know, we no longer have to do with 
prentice hands who can be content with what is less than 
perfection, and happy if they have rendered a form approxi- 
mately and filled up surfaces at haphazard, but with artists 
who strain every nerve to express things exactly as they see 
them, and who, when they set themselves to clothe their 
_ observation in a form that is perfect and precise, are conscious 
of satisfying one of the higher needs of humanity, and who 
possess a sense of and a love for beauty—in short, with artists 
who, in their fashion, are already producing works of art.’ 
It is the same for their confréres the sculptors’ and for 
all the workers who model in relief or in the round. Here, 
too, the masterpieces are no more. The great statues in 
bronze, the famous group of the Tyrannicides carried off by 
the Persians, even the replicas which Critius and Nesiotes 
were to do soon after, have disappeared almost without leav- 
ing a trace, and now we have great difficulty in imagining 
what they were like; yet there remain more humble witnesses 
to the perfection to which such works of art attained. Ex- 
cavation has revealed a fair number of terra-cotta® and bronze 
statuettes which were sometimes votive, of plaques and even 
fragments of big statues. These fragments, for the most 
part in bad preservation, have given us at least an inkling 
of the form and aspect of the more important monuments, 
although it has been impossible—-or we have not known how— 
to preserve their patina. These reproductions made indus- 
trially at a period when it was not easy to draw a line between 
artisan and artist are sometimes little inferior in merit to the 
large statues. Certain faults born of the inexperience of the 
modeller and his scanty acquaintance with anatomy might 
be less obvious in these small figurines in which detail dis- 
appears. Taking all this ito consideration, and allowing 
the imagination to fill in the gaps in the evidence, we can 
get a fairly good idea of the relative degree of perfection to 
which the sculptor’s art attained at this period. The remains 
‘of pediments and the large number of wooden and marble 
statues found in clearing the Acropolis also help to this end.’ 
The greater part of these latter represent the Korai, orantes, 
and priestesses which the cult of Athena grouped on the 


1 LVIII ff. 2 LVIII ff 3 CV ff. 
* LXXIT, LXXVIII, LXXX, LXXXIX, XC, XCIV. 


INTRODUCTION 9 


sacred hill. Despite the imperfections of their structure and 
despite the many conventions to be seen in their pose and 
costume, their youthful and smiling grace has conquered even 
the most obstinate, and the art, already sure, with which 
they are modelled, the simplicity and the breadth of their 
style, and the decorative quality of their high and joyous 
silhouette is apparent to everyone. It should be noted in 
passing, however, that it was not here that secondary votive 
gifts or polychrome painting helped to hide the faults of the 
modelling, and the company of skilled workmen to whom we 
owe them merely repeated with insignificant variations the 
originals designed by creative master-artists. We have 
proof of this in the fact that similar statues have been dis- 
covered in other great sanctuaries such as Delphi and Delos, 
without counting all those that have vanished; it was simply 
the exceptional finding together of such a large number of well- 
preserved examples on the Acropolis that gave the mistaken 
impression of an Attic speciality, for we must not forget that 
these are votive statues, manufactured by the dozen, and 
only very exceptionally original works or genuine creations. 
Their testimony is but the more eloquent in favour of Attic 
art at the beginning of the 5th century. These average 
productions show us clearly and decisively the average level 
of art at the time of the Persian wars. Many conventions 
still regulate it. The attitudes are stiff, the details and features 
ill-observed or rendered ill, the anatomy is defective, the 
draperies too symmetrical or else cling to the form in an 
incomprehensible manner, but all these defects will be 
practically invisible if we think of the progress realized since 
this century or even in a shorter space of time. And we can 
well conceive that it was about this period that Ageladas 
appeared, the sculptor to whom a false tradition has given 
Myron, Phidias, and Polyclitus as pupils—that is to say the 
three masters whose fame fills the entire 5th century. It 
mattered little to us here whether the legend of Ageladas is 
true or false; suffice it that, looking at things broadly, sculp- 
ture, in a general way, if not in possession of all the means of 
expression, was at least nearing emancipation and final liberty 
towards 480." 

Thus painting and sculpture, the plane image and the 


1 LXXVIII, p. 351. 


10 INTRODUCTION 


plastic representation are about equally advanced, or if it is 
preferred, are at about the same point of perfection. We are 
the less surprised that the practice of polychrome decoration, 
then more general, rendered the frontiers between these two 
arts very indistinct and often difficult or almost impossible 
to determine. It does not matter to us here, and anyhow the 
question is futile, which of these arts is anterior to the other, 
and which of them made the faster progress; if we cannot 
say that they went hand in hand, at least we shall see later 
that many a celebrated sculptor was a painter and many a 
painter occasionally modelled. 

Given this point of departure, with art, in its two forms, 
nearing, towards the year 480 B.c., its maturity and full 
development, the entire history of the 5th century will be 
marked by ceaseless progress in art and by the masterpieces 
which appear almost annually. Possibly as great promise 
has been seen elsewhere, but if Greek art had stopped there, 
and however rare may have been the qualities then revealed, 
that art would not be to-day what it is. Its singular and 
it would seem, unique good fortune lies in the fact that, 
almost arriving at perfection, it always tended to get still 
closer, and though it may not be given to human nature to 
achieve it, 1t succeeded better than any other art in trans- 
forming its chimeras of beauty and its dreams into living 
realities. There is here a continuous effort, a steadily main- 
tained progress, a perseverance in creative energy which not 
only is a great testimonial to the Greek race, but to humanity 
itself. Such success is unique, but it is a great thing and 
highly consoling that we can quote at least one such 
example. 

This is not the place in which to set down the history of 
this incomparable period which is so little known. Suffice 
it to call to mind that Myron, Phidias, and Polyclitus, to 
quote only the very great names, then created their toreutic 
masterpieces and carved their great chryselephantine statues. 
Polygnotus and Micon, on the other hand, painted their 
great frescoes, and at the end of the century, Zeuxis and 
Parrhasius their miniatures. Finally, Athens, at the apogee 
of her power under Pericles, covered herself with monuments 
till she rivalled the great sanctuaries of Olympia, of Delphi 
and Delos. If we reflect that this was also the period of the 


INTRODUCTION 11 


great tragic writers we shall agree that never were there 
known so many great talents and masterpieces nor so great 
a concourse of poets and artists, when the influence of creative 
thought on plastic or pictorial invention must have been as 
great as that of the artists on the poets. We can understand 
that all, even the humblest of artisans and disciples, coming 
into contact with this great interplay of ideas and having 
before them works which both served them as examples and 
spurred them to emulation in that pre-eminently privileged 
period, were alive to these fertilizing influences and that 
their ruder productions reflected the glow in their own 
way. 

The Peloponnesian wars which put a period to Athens’ 
brief hegemony did not cause any sudden interruption to 
her artistic destinies. Leaving aside a later renaissance 
_ which was to be less fruitful, Praxiteles was to make the Attic 
workshops famous once again in the 4th century, and his 
masterpieces were to make known a new form of art. Only 
it was to be a new form in fact, since neither 4th century 
art in general nor Praxiteles’ art in particular is the Attic 
art of the 5th century. The spirit of it is different, as, in 
some respects, is the technique and even the material, up 
toapoint. The gulf between the two schools is not impassable 
but it is sufficiently wide and deep to make one feel that the 
atmosphere is different, and that one is almost in another 
world. 

If we follow the evolution of art very closely perhaps we 
shall altogether miss or scarcely be aware of the metamor- 
phosis. The change, indeed, is slow and gradual. With 
sculptors of the transition who still work in the 5th century 
manner it is certain traits and details alone which herald 
the coming revolution. It is ever thus in art. To cite an 
instance nearer home, it is maintained to-day that the shell, 
so dear to the century before last, had already appeared 
under Louis XIV., and if we go further than mere ornament, 
_ Watteau, in whom we can trace much of the 18th-century 
spirit, scarcely comes into Louis XV. and barely survives the 
Regency. Yet it is undeniable that the difference between 
his art and that of a Poussin or a Lesueur, even a Lebrun or 
a Mignard, leaps to the eye and that the contrast is absolute. 
If we advance by stages from one point to another the 


12 INTRODUCTION 


change is scarcely noticeable, but if we jump suddenly 
from one to the other, we are aware of entering a different 
world. : 

So it is with Greek art, and even if we cannot say that 
the 4th century is an advance on the 5th, at least the change 
from one to the other is notable and almost complete. Fresh 
tendencies come to light which do not appear in the earlier 
period; new ways of reaching a new ideal open up: the quality 
and character of art are different from, and almost opposed 
to, those of the previous century. 

That is why, when we seek to define the essence of Greek 
art, we shall take care not to reject a priori examples borrowed 
from other periods of its history, but shall choose them by 
preference in the time of its apogee and fullest development. 
In the 6th century foreign influence is still marked and the 
workman has scarcely got to work with his tools: in some 
ways the artist is still a prentice hand with them. Some of 
his attempts, indeed, were particularly characteristic in 
vain, since in art more than in anything else one has to 
judge the creator not by his intention but by what he has 
actually created. Hence our obligation to seek the real 
traits of Greek art in its great creations and masterpieces. 

These alone will tell us what it is that is specific and original 
in Greek art—indicate its hall-mark, and show us wherein 
lies its superiority. 

Yet if we stop there the picture will be really incomplete, 
for however highly we esteem the masterpieces of the 5th 
century they are not the only masterpieces nor do they 
represent all that Greek effort has created. Hence, so soon 
as we have defined, to the best of our ability, the leading 
qualities of Greek art, and have grasped something of what 
the masterpieces of the 5th century must have been, we will 
pass on to the study of later art, and will seek for those new 
tendencies which reveal themselves and certain of which 
were to have so great an influence on Roman art and thus a 
repercussion in the Renaissance and in modern art. Thus 
completed, this picture will really show us of what the Greeks 
were capable; we shall find out what art meant to them and 
exactly what they thought about it. 


INTRODUCTION 13 


Hil 


All science, or to speak more generally, all knowledge, 
presupposes a certain number of elements or data on which 
the savant or the merely curious exercises his reason. Just 
as the historian classifies, discusses, and elucidates facts, the 
philosopher scrutinizes, dissects, and analyzes ideas, and the 
grammarian studies the forms of words and the laws of 
language, so does the art critic have a knowledge of monu- 
ments of all kinds, buildings, sculptures, paintings, gravings, 
which, seeing that they are the work of the Greeks, must 
and can alone shed for him the necessary light on their réle 
and on their worth as artists. Theories and dissertations, 
even though ancient, may be quite useless or misleading 
when we are trying to get at what beauty was for them; 
_ in order to guard against errors of judgment there is only one 
kind of evidence admissible without question or control 
and that is or will be the actual work which came, as it 
were, alive from their hands. Although the material may 
not have yielded to their will and although they may not 
have known how to clothe their visions in perfect form, the 
product of their labours tells us what they desired to do, 
what they were capable of creating, what their ideals were, 
and what their weaknesses, and it reveals to us their inner- 
most intentions and the means they employed to translate 
them into material and plastic form. 

Hence it will suffice to have at our disposal a certain 
number of works of art in which are manifested directly and 
without intermediaries the creative faculty of the Hellenes, 
but it will be also an essential condition. Once we have 
these data before us our task will be to study them and to 
discover the indications we seek, and it is quite likely that 
owing either to inability or incapacity we may fail, or that 
this or that monument under examination will not reveal 
to us its secret or will yield it up in part only; we shall have 
but ourselves to blame—our inexperience or our lack of 
perspicacity. At least we shall have all the elements essential 
to our science before us; the seed is there, needing only a 
creative spirit to breathe upon it that it may germinate. 
With such first principles all is possible, but it goes without 
saying that without them nothing is possible. If we realize 


14 INTRODUCTION 


that from such premisses we can draw the necessary logical 
conclusions, we should also quite clearly understand that 
without them it is impossible or at least unlikely that we shall 
arrive at the end in view. Im other words, before we can 
make any deduction we must make certain of the fact or 
facts which we intend to study and see that they are firmly 
established. 

Since our whole task consists in determining the sense and 
scrutinizing the worth of the ancient monuments, we must 
first, in order to avoid as far as possible all chances of error, 
find out what these facts on which we are to work really are; 
in short, before we do anything else we must critically ex- 
amine our sources and see if it is feasible for us, in the 20th 
century of the Christian era, to comprehend fully and at 
first hand an ancient work of art. 

The problem has its importance because obviously the 
whole of this study depends on its solution. If the answer 
is in the affirmative our enquiry will still not have been in 
vain because it will have consolidated our basic principles 
and shown us the value of the documents which we shall have 
to put forward. If it is in the negative, or if it runs the risk 
of being so, the original question forces itself upon us still 
more emphatically, because it would be fraudulent deliberately 
to build on sand and to construct a system on a rotten founda- 
tion. Clarity and complete frankness, ae praiseworthy, 
are here absolutely essential. 

Can we, then, after the lapse of two thousand years, 
comprehend the original creations of the Greek artists— 
which is the indispensable condition for a just appreciation, 
and essential if we are to draw legitimate deductions from 
this appreciation ? We must admit, for it is useless to deny 
it, that the wear and tear of time has done its work, and we 
must not demand that the entire work of a single artist should 
have survived to our own day: a few specimens, be they 
never so scarce or scattered, will suffice, so long as they come 
to us direct, are definite, and characteristic. This inevitable 
reservation does not subtract anything from the force of the 
principal question, which faces us all the more obstinately 
in that, as we shall see presently, the answer is a difficult 
one, and in that at first sight it would seem impossible to 
arrive at a satisfactory solution of the problem. 


INTRODUCTION 16 


_ In order to facilitate its discussion, we shall split up the 

problem and by passing in review the different categories 
of works of art we shall see whether we arrive at the same 
conclusion in each class and each series. 

At first sight nothing would seem easier than to represent 
to ourselves what was the architecture’ of the Greeks. Its 
ruins are often extant and, with rare exceptions, there is 
hardly a single famous monument of antiquity whose site 
at least and frequently its main lines are not known to us. 
Occasionally we are even more fortunate, and the Theseum, 
in which it is supposed we can recognize the Hephzesteum 
of Pausanias, has only lost its ancient roof. Yet, when we 
look more closely, we have to confess that appearances are 
deceptive and that our knowledge is illusory. The Theseum, 
whose merit should neither be detracted from nor exaggerated, 
is far from giving a complete idea of Hellenic architecture; 
it lacks more than the missing marble tiles, for it has lost its 
polychrome decoration, the greater part of its sculptures, 
all its interior arrangement, the cult statue which was its 
raison d’étre, the frescoes which embellished its walls, and 
the votive gifts which filled and adorned the sanctuary; of 
all this living ensemble there remains but the mute and 
empty frame. How much the more so is this the case with 
the most celebrated monuments which, as we know from 
the universal admiration of the Ancients, were the most 
beautiful with which they were acquainted! Even if the 
sculptures taken away by Lord Elgin were still in their 
places, and, still more to the point, even if the explosion of 
a Venetian bomb had not disembowelled the Parthenon,? 
should we really have any true idea of this temple which was 
the most perfect of them all and the one which could have 
told us most? Here, too, the skeleton survives, and the 
exterior sculptural decoration is well preserved up to a 
point despite inevitable mutilations ; but if Phidias super- 
intended the building, and if he was indeed the author of 
this work, there must have existed a subtle and profound 
harmony between the sanctuary itself and the cult statue— 
his masterpiece and the masterpiece of Greek art. One or 
two imperfect miniatures and a few partial replicas allow 
us to guess at the appearance of the idol, but the idol minus 

1 XXIII ff. 2 XXXIX, XLIV. 


16 INTRODUCTION 


its attributes and pose, its arms and costume; on the Acropolis 
we can even lay our hands on the substructure of the old 
base; but we are ignorant of everything else, of the precise 
height of the gold and ivory Colossus, the relations which 
the statue bore to its architectural setting, the lighting, the 
plastic décor of the building, the wall frescoes, and the manner 
in which the votive figures were grouped and in which the 
treasure of Athena was disposed; we have no means of know- 
ing all that which was comprehended between the columns ~ 
of the prodomus and the opisthodomus. All of which is as 
much as to say that we are ignorant of almost the entire 
monument, or, if it be preferred, that we do not know its 
essentials, since the Greeks, who were skilled and experienced 
builders, erected their facades as an adjunct to the halls 
which they limited or concealed—so much so that they are 
really only explained by their interior: hence if we know 
nothing of the interior we practically know nothing of the 
building, because we do not know its real significance nor 
its raison d’étre. 

It would be easy to multiply examples: they would all 
be equally convincing and there would be some which are 
even more decisive which we could select at will among the 
numerous monuments of which even less remains to us than 
of the Parthenon. In many cases, no doubt, modern science 
has restored the vanished past, reasoning by analogy or basing 
itself on slender indications, but however ingenious these 
restorations may be on paper, we can never be sure that they 
realize their aim, and if we suppose that by some miracle 
one among them approached the actuality, there would 
still remain, between the restoration and the once living work, 
all the difference that lies between the palpitating being and 
its shadow or reflection. 

If we pass on from buildings to sculptures,’ our enquiry 
must be directed first towards those original documents which 
have come down to us from the 5th and 4th centuries—those 
which must principally engage our attention. To facilitate 
their examination we can divide them into two distinct groups 
of decorative schemes and isolated figures. We have pre- 
served, if not in their entirety, at least in fragmentary 
fashion, the interior ornamentation of a few among the most 

1 LVIII ff. 


INTRODUCTION 17 


famous temples known to antiquity. Such as, from the 
beginning of the 5th century, the temples of Avgina, of Zeus 
at Olympia, the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, the sanctuary 
of the Wingless Victory, and later on, the temples at Tegea 
and Magnesia, and the mausoleum at Halicarnassus. No 
doubt there are many lacune in these decorative ensembles; 
here, the very subject is hardly recognizable and it is still 
under discussion to-day; there, the details are impossible to 
discern, limbs are missing, and the skin and bloom of the 
marble has everywhere disappeared. Despite these blanks 
and gaps, even if we cannot appraise the work in the form in 
which the Ancients had it before them, at least we can re- 
construct to a certain point the groups of those days from their 
mutilated remains. Supposing that our patience and per- 
severance are rewarded, what will be the result of our efforts ? 
We shall have got to know, more or less, the decoration of 
one or more buildings; but, however important and celebrated 
these temples may have been, we may well believe that the 
reliefs in them were not the original and first-hand work of 
the great artists of antiquity. Among the temples whose 
exterior ornament has survived to our day there are some 
whose decorators remain anonymous: in those instances in 
which tradition has preserved a name, the question is to 
determine what was the personal share which the master 
had in the work of his studio. Let us take the Parthenon 
for example. It is a much disputed point, and one into 
which we can hardly enter here, whether the pediments, 
the friezes and the metopes of the temples are or are not due 
to Phidias; those critics, however, who are most in favour of 
the affirmative thesis will never admit—if they have any good © 
sense at all—that we owe to the sculptor anything but the 
design and the models for the scheme. _ His pupils may have 
executed the statues of the pediments and the various bas- 
reliefs under his direction: we cannot definitely state that a 
single portion of the work is to be imputed to the artist and, 
strictly speaking, we have no right to judge the artist himself 
on this evidence. Not that I do not recognize the rare and 
sublime beauty which the marbles at the British Museum, 
and the Athens and Louvre fragments, still retain; but, how- 
ever precious these sculptures, we cannot deduce from them 
what Phidias really was, and we should be very easily satisfied 
2 


18 INTRODUCTION 


and devoid of all healthy critical sense were we to conclude 
simply that the work of the master must be even more 
beautiful. The inference is quite legitimate but is altogether 
too general to teach us anything of the individual character 
and genius of the artist; all our efforts would be merely 
deception were they to result in so vague and so gratuitous 
an affirmation. 

Over and above the sanctuaries we possess a considerable 
number of funerary sculptures’ over which we can pass 
rapidly, because, whatever their merit, and however precious 
they may be for us modern folk, they belong, with rare 
exceptions, to purely industrial art, and for the most part the 
artists who executed them were simple carvers of marble 
among whom, though we are not justified in looking for 
artists, we shall find skilled craftsmen. Fortunately we 
possess other statues and reliefs which come sometimes from 
the great sanctuaries and in which we can see votive pieces 
which the pious faithful ordered from renowned sculptors. 
The trouble is that all these relics of the past are anonymous. 
One original piece of the 4th century alone has come down 
to us in part—the Hermes of Praxiteles, slender evidence on 
which to judge even the art of the 4th century, since Pausanias, 
who alone speaks of it, has not mentioned it among the 
celebrated productions of the artist nor included it among 
his masterpieces; we can understand his reserve to a certain 
extent when we are confronted with the somewhat smooth 
flesh and with an art, already almost academic, which has 
disconcerted certain archeologists and which carries a 
fugitive suggestion of some statue of the imperial period. I 
shall not now speak of the insignificant base of Bryaxis nor 
of the pedestal of Mantineus.. The statues they carried were 
the sculptors’ work, not the supports, with which they had 
nothing to do and which we cannot even say were the product 
of their workshops. Bearing in mind the disproportion be- 
tween the two cases, the relation between the Arcadian bas- 
reliefs and the unknown work of the sculptor remains the same 
as that between the decoration of the Parthenon and Phidias’ 
statue: in both cases the original work which alone concerns 
us remains a mystery to which we have no clue.? 

We shall not be surprised at this deceptive result if we 


1 LXII-IV. 2 See, on these problems, VI, vol. i, p. 263. 


INTRODUCTION 19 


remember what the Ancients have told us about the work of 
the great statue-carvers. Their testimony, which, perhaps, 
has been too greatly discredited, is entirely unlike the artistic 
judgment of modern folk, but when it is a matter of material 
statements and not a question of critical appreciation we have 
no right to withhold our credence. And their testimony is 
unanimous on this point, that the great masters of the 5th 
and even the larger number of those of the 4th century only 
occasionally worked in marble: their masterpieces were either 
chryselephantine or bronze, both alike having disappeared. 
Praxiteles, of whom we spoke above, was definitely an 
exception, as were also two or three artists, like Scopas, with- 
out, however, any of them, so far as we know, having worked 
solely in stone. The others, that is to say the great majority, 
were toreutists,' which is easily to be understood if we reflect, 
as we shall see, presently, on the altogether exceptional facility 
of these artists in their work and on the perfection of the process 
which insured that they could render in every detail every little 
refinement of their model and even the very intentions of 
their chisel. And here we are completely baffled, since hardly 
a single original has come down to us, not only among the 
chryselephantine statues, which is only what we should 
expect, but even among the works in metal. We possess a few 
originals in bronze of which not one is intact or well preserved, 
but which we can legitimately date to the 5th and 4th cen- 
turies: not one is signed by an illustrious or even by a known 
name, and we are not justified in seeing in any of them the 
authentic, individual and certain work of one of the great 
masters. 

What are we to think of the great decorative painting,” 
the frescoes of Polygnotus and Micon, the pictures of Parrha- 
sius, Zeuxis, and Apelles? Here the answer can be given more 
briefly but with greater peremptoriness. Etiam periere ruine ; 
not a single signed work remains which we can definitely 
attribute to one of the masters or even to one of his disciples. 
We have the walls of the Lesche of Delphi about which Pau- 
sanias gives us minute details, infinitely precious: not a trace, 
I will not say of the antique work, but of the glaze on which 
it was done, is preserved, an irreparable loss when we think 
of the fame enjoyed by this creation of the Thasos painter 

1 CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘‘ Statuaria ars.”’ 2 CXV ff. 


20 INTRODUCTION 


and of the crowd of imitations of all kmds which the master- 
piece provoked from the moment it saw the light. Else- 
where, in Athens, we scarcely know the site of the Stoa 
peekile; and even if the Pinacotheca of the Propylea is stand- 
ing yet, we still know nothing about the gallery which once 
garnished its walls. 

This is not to say that Renna science stands helpless 
before these disasters. Carl Robert, an ingenious and able 
archeologist, has succeeded in recapturing the order and 
spirit, at least, of the frescoes of the Cnidian Lesche by 
interpreting Pausanias’ description in the light of the industrial 
replicas which they may have inspired. He has not given 
us and does not attempt to render these two scenes as they 
were admired of old with all the grandeur of their design, 
the harmony of their proportions and the purity and 
simplicity of their colouring. What means have we, then, 
to-day, wherewith to gain an idea of antique painting? It 
is not to be doubted that the painters of vases,’ or at all 
events some among them, were inspired by the frescoes 
which they may have admired in the sanctuaries, just as 
the Limoges enamellers and the Urbino potters imitated the 
masterpieces of the great painters of France and Italy in 
order that they might provide their clients with a souvenir or 
miniature rendering of them. But it has to be remembered 
that the potter’s field is limited, which obliged the decorators 
to select and hence to eliminate many significant details, 
while the curvature falsified proportions, sometimes widely 
separating, sometimes bringing too close together, the heads 
and feet. Finally all the colouring was lost since most 
ceramists used reserved and flat tones, and the lecythus 
decorators, who used many tones, thought only of riveting 
the attention by crude colour combinations, and sought 
bright tints rather than truth. The metopes of Thermos, 
a few Athenian and Theban stele, and the later stele of 
Pagasz, provide us with documentation that, in a sense, is 
more exact and comes nearer to the original paintings, but 
the most perfect and precious of them, such as the monument 
of Aristion and the three Theban stones, are not sufficiently 
well preserved nor sufficiently decisive and characteristic. 
The artisans who worked for the necropoles, like the ceramists, 

1 CXXIX ff. 


a 


INTRODUCTION 21 


were humble workers, who, having no ambition to be original 
and thinking before all else of proportion, did not seek to go 
out of their way to produce a work of art. 

Professional education was so perfect and the general taste 
was so pure that even artists of second rank have contrived 
to leave behind precious testimony to their ability: how much 
the more wonderful must have been the glory of the colouring, 
the perfection of the design, and the execution of a Polygnotus 
or a Parrhasius, a Zeuxis or an Apelles ! 


Failing that first-hand testimony which the monuments 
do not give us, possibly we might feel inclined to seek in- 
formation from the natural surroundings among which dwelt 
the artists of ancient Greece, the architects, sculptors and 
painters. This natural décor has never changed. Though 
the mountain slopes have become less wooded, their out: 
line remains the same; the same bold, sharply-cut lines 
define the horizon in the same translucent atmosphere, the 
same air plays about the valleys of the Cephissus and the 
Ilissus, and the same sun rises behind Hymettus, and when, 
at eventide, he disappears behind, the hills of Eleusis, the self- 
same tints of mauve and blue follow one another in the eastern 
sky. The spectacle is unchanging and there is not a doubt 
but that its beauty, together with the view of the Spartan 
plain, of the Delphic Pheedriades, and of the Theban Cithzron 
and the great Thessalian valleys deeply moved the sensitive 
soul of the Hellenes: that they did feel the spell of these 
privileged natural surroundings is revealed to us by the 
discreet avowals which escaped them and by the hymns of 
gratitude which they addressed to the gods who had cast 
their lines in “‘ violet-crowned ’’ Athens. Neither can we— 
modern barbarians—contemplate without emotion the skies 
to which, even as we do, these famous men turned the regard 
of countenances on which we would fain look again. On the 
slopes of the Acropolis there are places where we walk on the 
naked rock which may have known the footprints of Sophocles 
and Socrates, Phidias and Alcibiades, of artists and poets, 
statesmen and philosophers, of the greatest writers and artists 
known to the pagan world. 

Comparisons such as these may be profitable to the moral 


22 INTRODUCTION 


ego and productive of long reveries. But do they tell us 
anything definite about the ancient spirit and ancient art? 
And even if it is easy to believe and to prove that the Ancients 
were really sensitive to the beauty of the surrounding scenery, 
it by no means follows that we can measure, to-day, the 
influence that this privileged environment may have exercised 
on them. And it is not difficult to show that we must beware 
of exaggerating this environmental influence and that in any 
case we are not justified in assuming the subject from the 
décor nor the picture from its frame. Indeed, Greeks still 
live where their ancestors dwelt before them: and though 
their material life may be modified or transformed, the aspect 
of the surrounding nature has not changed, or only very 
slightly. Hence the same causes ought to act in the same 
way and produce the same results, and if we claim that Greek 
art could only have blossomed in this exceptional environ- 
ment, then contemporary Hellas ought to produce a galaxy 
of artists inferior in nothing to those of antiquity. Yet 
nothing of the sort has come to pass, and though we cannot 
lay it down that nothing of the sort ever will come to pass, at 
all events there is nothing whatever to justify us in claiming 
that someday there will be a renaissance of artistic life in 
this country. Neither is the case of Greece peculiar. Despite 
the spirit of emulation with which contemporary Italian 
architects, sculptors and painters endeavour to rival their 
forbears of the Renaissance, no one could seriously maintain 
that their work, however admirable it may be now and again, 
is in any way comparable with the masterpieces of the 15th 
and 16th centuries. And yet, there too, neither nature nor 
the land has changed. I am well aware that both in Greece 
and Italy many accessory causes serve as pretexts to explain 
this difference between the past and the present, but even if 
we can thus attenuate or water down reality, we cannot alter 
the profound nature of things, and the conclusion to which 
we are driven is both clear and brutal: we can never hope to 
know the art of the Greeks by approaching it by way of nature 
—that is to say from the exterior. The most subtle of 
analyses can never deduce from the environment alone the 
character of their complex creation which was the result of 
a number of causes and the fruit of long effort. Thus we 
have not found here the criterion, the hall-mark which will 


INTRODUCTION 23 


permit us to obtain a first-hand knowledge of, and to define, 
antique art. 


Is this to say that we must despair of ever attaining what 
we seek? That this unknown territory eludes our curiosity 
and that we must strike out from the empire of science this 
domain to which our imperfect means do not allow us access ? 
I do not think so and I believe that, though nothing can 
replace the sight and study of the masterpieces which have 
vanished for ever, at least we can get a fairly correct idea 
of them which, if it is neither complete nor exact in every 
detail, yet can approach sufficiently close to the reality. 
Failing absolute certainty, which we can never attain in this 
world, I believe, and I shall endeavour to show, that we 
can reach that degree of average certainty with which some 
of the experimental sciences, such as history, have to be 
content, and which would appear to serve them with moderate 
sufficiency. 

If we retrace, step by step, the rapid enquiry already 
undertaken, it is doubtless true, and vexatious, that we do 
not know a single building of antiquity fundamentally and 
completely. There is not a temple, a mausoleum, a public or 
private edifice which presents itself to our view to-day such 
as it must have appeared to a contemporary of Solon, Pericles 
or Demosthenes. It would be surprising indeed if over two 
thousand years could roll by between their civilization and 
ours without leaving any visible trace of their passage. Still, 
if the wear and tear of time is always necessarily apparent, 
is that to say that we cannot by any manner of means figure 
to ourselves what these things once were, or that we are for- 
ever forbidden to assume with some little chance of certainty 
the vanished grandeur from the present state or to postulate 
the past from the present ? 

Above we have alluded more particularly to temples and 
we said that, despite a fair supply of means of information, 
neither the Theseum nor the Parthenon is or can be known 
completely in every detail of structure or decoration. This 
is true, but on both points we have a certain amount of light — 
and maybe we do know the essentials, after all. Only, we 
must be resigned to a certain lack of knowledge, inevitable 


24. INTRODUCTION 


for humanity, and it would be well, or rather it is necessary, 
that we should know how to interpret such evidence as we do 
possess. 

Hence, where we can learn nothing at first-hand we must 
make use of methods which will enable us to get as near as 
may be, and must reason by analogy. We do not know 
the architectural scheme of the Theseum, and we know very 
little about that of the Parthenon; but, on the other hand, 
inscriptions have preserved for us wholly or in part the plans 
of several antique buildings, such as the temple of Zeus at 
Livadia, the sanctuary at Delphi, the Arsenal of Philo and 
the temple at Didymi. These edifices, of which one has 
entirely disappeared, do not resemble one another in date, 
arrangement or interior disposition, but they are all the 
fruit of Greek thought, and the method of execution, the 
plan, the general arrangement, in short the architectural 
conception and treatment, would not and could not vary 
greatly as between one building and another, and we are 
fully justified in applying to the Theseum and the Parthenon 
the results of observations suggested by the analysis of these 
written documents, since it must be readily admitted that 
there were general laws from which the Athenians to whom 
we owe these two temples could not escape. 

Inscriptions likewise give us the inventory of the treasure 
preserved in the episthodomus of the Parthenon. However 
dry the enumeration and however unsatisfying to our curiosity 
this list may be in some respects, we do at least learn what 
was the nature of these votive offerings and the manner in 
which they were arranged in rows and as though by storeys. 
This store of all manner of articles—a mass of varied and 
sometimes strange gifts—we can hardly figure to ourselves 
with exactitude, nor can we see with our eyes its sumptuous 
and variegated profusion; but we know enough about it to 
imagine that portion of the sanctuary as a huge depot of 
goods, among which some, if not all, are known to us with 
precision. And this detailed view, which other inventories 
confirm, does not fail to teach us much as to what were Greek 
sanctuaries in general and the Parthenon in particular. 

Furthermore, the means of information about Greek archi- 
tecture at our disposal are really abundant and guarantee 
us a relative degree of safety in drawing our conclusions. 


INTRODUCTION 25 


This is neither the time nor the place to enumerate them, but 
we can indicate some at least among the more instructive or, 
as one says, the more suggestive. There are, firstly, the ruins, 
scattered as they are, throughout the Hellenic world: although 
only too often nothing but the foundations of once famous 
temples remain, we have been able to preserve, thanks to 
happy excavations, significant portions of walls, pediments 
and pictorial and sculptural decorations; frequently texts, 
whether inscriptions or literary, add to this testimony and 
allow us to see what the aspect of the monument might have 
been when complete. Even beyond the borders of Greece, 
the Italian and Sicilian ruins permit instructive comparisons 
to be made: though we may have to exercise caution in having 
recourse to them, and though it may not be the case that an 
example, taken from Pompeii, has an antecedent in Greece, 
the décor of the Pompeiian cities does, after all, derive from 
a Hellenic model. So that Vesuvian villas, which are almost 
intact, shed light on many points and give us the informa- 
tion which we seek in vain elsewhere. Thanks to all these 
scattered data, and by dint of gleaning wherever we can re- 
vealing indications and sources of information, we are able 
to get a summary idea, yet correct as a whole, of what antique 
architecture was. 

If we pass on to sculpture there is no fear that I shall 
fail to recognize the force and extent of the objections and 
reservations that we were obliged to make just now; yet, 
although it is only too true that we can never know the work 
of the Greek artists in its integrity, we must not on that 
account jump to the conclusion that we cannot form any 
clear idea of it or that it must remain for us a terra incognita 
closed to our researches and for ever removed beyond reach 
of our curiosity. 

I am willing enough to concede that the exterior decoration 
of the great sanctuaries could not be the actual handiwork 
of the great masters. It is none the less true that, in certain 
well-defined instances, these friezes and groups were carried 
out under their direction and in their studios by pupils or 
men who worked for them and in the spirit of the master and 
who had been taught by them, and followed their tradition; 
thus we are justified in looking for something of the quality 
inspiring their masterpieces in these secondary, and I might 


26 INTRODUCTION 


almost say indirect though authentic productions; though 
these may be but “poor relations” they are yet members 
of the same family deriving from the same source and draw- 
ing their inspiration from the same ideal; the hand of these 
pupil workers, though less skilled, retains the cunning im- 
parted to it by the master teacher, and that cunning we shall 
be able to trace even in these lesser productions. Even 
where the decorative scheme remains anonymous, and in 
cases in which there is not even a doubtful text to guide us 
as to the responsible authorship, it is by no means a small 
thing that we are able to make the acquaintance, albeit im- 
perfectly, of these stone and marble documents. They are, 
indeed, important pieces of evidence which we can frequently 
date more or less correctly and which tell us the stage to 
which the art of modelling had reached at a given period. 
When we see or can determine what the plastic décor of a 
notable monument was like, we can safely postulate the 
degree of perfection which sculpture had achieved at the 
period in which the building was erected, and this is direct, 
irrefutable evidence to which no conjecture, no text even, 
could add anything in certainty. 

As for the isolated statues, it is certain that the master- 
pieces have not been preserved and that, with practically 
one exception alone, we do not know the authentic and 
original works of the great masters. Excavation, however, 
happily yields and continues to unearth sculptures, already 
numerous and growing more numerous still, which can either 
be dated with precision or with small likelihood of error. 
These monuments are unsigned by any great name and 
represent the average run of sculpture. Common or garden 
productions of the marble-workers’ chisels, they furnish 
us with the ordinary level of art, or thereabouts. This is 
evidence taken from among the people who may be somewhat 
behindhand in the tendencies of the studios and which, in 
any case, is neither too significant nor too expressive. Thus 
in one sense this evidence is more precise, if not more valuable. 
The conclusions we shall draw from the direct and unpre- 
judiced analysis of these works will allow us to get a know- 
ledge of the condition and tendencies of art in the precise 
period to which these monuments belong. If the investi- 
gation is cautious and restrained, as it ought to be, it will 


INTRODUCTION 27 


yield us modest results with nothing sensational about them, 
but our conclusions, on the other hand, will be certain, and 
we ought to place all the more faith in them in that they 
will be taken at random and will in no way be exceptional. 
On the other hand, in many cases we know the titles and 
have a brief description of masterpieces which have not been 
preserved. Art criticism properly so-called' would seem 
to have begun with Xenocrates, the disciple of Lysippus, 
in the first half of the 3rd century B.c., but, over and above 
the appraisements or descriptions of periegetes and tech- 
nicians, “‘ lay ” writers have transmitted to us the impressions 
made upon them by. works of art: as in our own day there 
were plenty of the uninitiated in antiquity who considered 
themselves to be authorities on painting and fancied them- 
selves capable of estimating the merit of a fresco or a picture; 
but, even in the case of a celebrated piece of sculpture, each 
one had his own opinion or thought he ought to have one, 
if it were only to repeat the pronouncement of the connois- 
seurs. Summary as they may be, all these appreciations, 
whose echo has come down to us, are not negligible, and, 
provided we interpret them correctly, we ought to take them 
into account. Then sometimes we have inscriptions which 
are silent as to the artistic value of the work but which do 
give us information about practical details and material 
conditions. To these documents must be added the replicas 
and imitations of all kinds, and even interpretations in and 
translations, into different materials, some idea of which may 
be had from the renderings, in their own fashion, by the 
Limoges enamel workers and the Faenza potters of the 
famous pictures of the Renaissance. When some great 
master completed a great work the repercussion must have 
affected every studio, even the workshops of the artisans; 
its influence on the marble and bronze workers was lively 
and undying; it was an inexhaustible source of inspiration 
from which flowed every kind of indirect imitation without 
counting the early demand for copies by art lovers, which 
copies were to adorn palaces, villas, libraries and museums, 
and were especially numerous in the Roman period. The 
archeologist’s task is to trace among the innumerable antique 
copies which have come down to us those which are to be 
1 VI, vol. i, p. 48. 


28 INTRODUCTION 


referred to this or that celebrated work and so to reconstruct 
the prototype; then, by grouping and combining the in- 
ferences to give us some idea of the sculptor himself, to 
discover, if possible, what it was which he contributed to 
the common stock, of which he himself was the genuine 
author—in brief, in what consisted his originality and his 
worth, or, if you will, what was his artistic value. 

Thus, by means of inferences and combinations one can 
build up a complete history of ancient art which is necessarily 
a work requiring much time and patience but which will lead 
to definite conclusions if the criticism be sufficiently measured 
and prudent. I am well aware that much that is arbitrary 
will enter into certain arguments and that the deductions 
to be drawn will not all be equally legitimate. It is only too 
true that for many savants certain affirmations are a matter 
of fashion or prejudice and that there are writers who, without 
troubling to think or judge for themselves, repeat without 
examining them the pronouncements that they have in- 
herited: it is not really of much consequence, because, by 
acting thus, they themselves lose authority, and science does 
not suffer from their mediocrity of mind. Maybe these 
Panurgian sheep are less dangerous, on the whole, than 
certain great minds who desire to be original at all costs. 
Such men take a name at random from among the lists of 
artists which antiquity has transmitted to us; according to 
some vague epithet with which Pliny or Pausanias may have 
supplied them, they proceed to make a second selection from 
the indistinguishable mass of anonymous statues which have 
come down to us and they proceed shamelessly to attribute 
a group of works to a master, unknown yesterday and fated 
to sink back into oblivion again to-morrow: it goes without 
saying that if they build up new systems and support them 
with subtle arguments and erudite reasons, they take still 
greater delight in undermining accepted conclusions which 
would appear to be based on the most solid foundations. 
Precious time is lost in defending against these furious on- 
slaughts positions which would appear to be finally won for 
science, and although this instability sometimes does dis- 
service to the good repute of archzology, we are all the more 
justified in stating that we ourselves are untouched by it 
and that France is not the country in which this mental 


INTRODUCTION 29 


malady and desire for fictitious originality has more particu- 
larly raged.’ 

In truth, the historian of antique sculpture must resign 
himself to a lack of knowledge in many directions. Perhaps 
I should find it preferable that we should own it frankly and 
that, for prudence’ sake, points of interrogation, in Renan’s 
phrase, should be understood in the margin. This, however, 
is a question of tact and of a sense of proportion rather than 
of an objection on principle. I might also wish that the critic 
would occupy himself less in discussing texts and establishing 
the value’ of testimony and more in first-hand study of those 
works of art which are preserved; here the prime reality, 
or if you will, the fact, is the monument, and an authentic 
piece of sculpture of the 5th century, even if it remains anony- 
mous, is of greater interest to us and can teach us more 
_ than inconclusive arguments about a vanished masterpiece of 
which no certain replica allows us to form a definite picture— 
provided, that is, that we interrogate our authentic piece 
of sculpture in the right way. With this reservation, there is 
nothing to prevent Greek sculpture from being an object 
of knowledge, if not of science, and it is no vain or sterile 
task to devote one’s efforts to gaining such knowledge.” 

If we now pass on from sculpture to painting,® at first 
sight it becomes even more difficult, as we have seen above, 
to get at the facts. At least the Hermes at Olympia is 
preserved to us; but not a fresco or a picture that has come 
down to us bears the name of an illustrious master or even of 
a known artist. It must be recognized that the loss is irre- 
parable, but if we wish to reckon up the extent of this loss, 
neither must we exaggerate it, and, given that certain frag- 
ments of the past have happily survived, we shall endeavour 
to make the best of them and to extract something from them. 

In fact, speaking with a due sense of proportion, the work 
of the ancient painters is known to us in much the same 
manner, neither less nor more, as is that of the sculptors. 
I will mention first among our sources of information inscrip- 
tions and literary texts. These are numerous if not always 
precise, the painter’s art having ever appeared to be more 
accessible to the man in the street than the art of the modeller, 


1 On this question see VI, vol. i, p. 253. 
2 Ibid., Archeological Methods. 3 CXV ff. 


30 INTRODUCTION 


while every writer gloried in demonstrating that he understood 
it, piqueing himself on possessing superior taste of a delicate 
and highly refined order. Added to these critical judgments 
we have the monuments, of which the greater part are 
replicas, faithful or indirect copies, of vanished masterpieces. 
The potter who decorated the surface of a vase’ quite naturally 
found his stylus or brush giving form to his recollections of 
great works he had frequently admired: consciously or un- 
consciously he adapted these memories to the very different 
field he had to fill; if sometimes he did it instinctively, he 
did, also, often seek to please his customers who would be 
pleased to have on modest pieces of pottery some reflection 
in miniature of an original they could never hope to possess. 
Funerary stele are more original, in a certain sense; but in 
the nature of things their motifs could neither be many nor 
greatly varied. Then, here, too, great masters created the 
models which inspired them and which were imitated though 
sometimes in a very free manner; one has to be on one’s guard, 
also, not to assume that a simple analogy in motif is necessarily 
in every case a copy or direct imitation. Thanks to recent 
discoveries, we do at least know what a painting on marble, 
on glaze, on wood, and on canvas looked like: though we 
may not know all the resources of ancient painting we can get 
an idea of the effects it sought and the effort of which it was 
capable. Even the frescoes at Pompeii, though they were at 
one time overestimated, must not be neglected; if we use their 
testimony with prudence we shall learn much about the 
repertory and the processes of antique painting. 

We shall understand it if we reflect on the effect and the 
repercussion which the great works exposed in the temples and 
public monuments must have had on the artists’ studios and 
even in the artisans’ booths. A very simple comparison will 
give us some notion of it. It is enough to think of the impres- 
sion produced, after the lapse of more than a century, by the 
compositions with which Giotto and Mantegna covered the 
churches of Padua which they decorated for the Scrovegni 
and the Ovetari. Directly they were finished the Arena 
and the Eremitani frescoes became the great subject of con- 
versation throughout Northern Italy and exercised an 
influence of which we can still measure the effect to some 

1 CXXIX ff. 


INTRODUCTION | 31 


extent. In Greece, where distances were less and where the 
smaller number of artists seem to have formed a more united 
family, the completion of important works of art, especially 
paintings, were even more notable events and became the 
occasion for festivals that were even more thronged, in this 
enthusiastic and impressionable environment, and_ their 
influence was both felt more deeply and over a longer period. 
Hence there is nothing surprising in the fact that the produc- 
tions of industrial art, such as painted vases, or even reliefs 
and bronzes, should preserve the memory and retain the 
reflection of these master compositions. And we have to con- 
gratulate ourselves that it was so, because without this sudden 
and immediate echo produced by masterpieces, and without 
the more gradual repercussion of the shock experienced 
by the popular soul and imagination, which might be propa- 
_ gated ad infinitum, we should lack our surest means of recon- 
structing, by the aid of definite inferences the vanished initial 
creation. Doubtless an abyss separates the masterpiece 
from the trifling productions which were less an imitation 
of it than a memory, yet a relation between them does exist, 
a relation which a patient and cautious analysis should permit 
us to disentangle; this, if we can achieve it, will be the con- 
ducting wire through which we shall get our knowledge, if not 
of the work, at all events of the essential spirit of the great 
masters. 

Thus this triple enquiry carried out in the field of ancient 
architecture, sculpture and painting is not destined to be 
without results. We cannot achieve a detailed history of 
these three arts nor follow them through every phase of their 
slow evolution; but at least we can make out the principal 
stages, and although the works themselves may elude us we 
can distinguish their essential features and their character. 
It is obvious that these three domains will not prove equally 
fruitful for the particular subject which concerns us and that 
it will be preferable for us to draw from two out of these 
three sources of investigation. Architecture, no matter how 
beautiful the monument nor what the merit or quality per- 
ceptible even by uninformed minds, is an art which, if not 
more material than the other two, is at least more dependent 
on its material. Its prime object is solidity rather than 
beauty, and it is designed before all else to shelter and cover 


32 INTRODUCTION 


that which the building is to house. Consequently, it cannot 
be expected to teach us so clearly or decisively as the other 
two what was the Greek conception of art. Not that we shall 
not interrogate the temple and portico builders on the secret 
of the Hellenic spirit—-as will be seen in the following pages— 
but we shall not expect from them the same response nor can 
we hope that they will teach us what the sculptors and 
painters can tell us. 

Indeed, it is sculpture and painting, the two major arts, 
which sum up the creative effort of a people in love with 
beauty, or a people who simply take thought for beauty. This 
seems so obvious from the outset that it is almost enough to 
state the proposition for its profound truth to be realized, 
but I think it will be as well to emphasize the point because of 
the importance of this fact which cannot be made too clear 
nor its consequences overstressed. 

Sculpture represents beings such as they are in reality: 
it gives, in an alien material, the illusion of life by means of 
solids in the three dimensions of height, width, and depth. 
In truth it is the art of rendering the whole exterior aspect 
of man and of causing him to appear as he is, no longer in the 
flesh but in marble and bronze. To achieve this the artist 
begins by modelling an amorphous lump of clay supported by 
a solid armature, which, when it is worked and shaped by 
spatula or fingers, finally assumes the desired appearance. 
The ideal would be for the clay or wax to be left just as it 
is fashioned, but the material is too fragile and the work 
could only be ephemeral. Even in the case of a simple terra 
cotta it is necessary—unless one is satisfied with something 
very rough—to mould a first model and to take a cast from 
it which has to be dried, as often as not after a more or less 
thorough baking which causes shrinkage and occasionally 
cracks, all of which operations modify the original model more 
or less appreciably. Hence it is natural that sculpture should 
prefer some more perfect process and one which will yield 
a more reliable result, permitting of the model being more 
successfully preserved exactly as it was fashioned. ‘This 
process, obviously, would be bronze-casting, which, when 
carried out carefully by skilled workers, insures the exact and 
perfect reproduction of the original model in almost the 
smallest details. Marble carving, more minute and delicate, 


INTRODUCTION 33 


is always or up to a certain point an interpretation, or, if 
you will, a translation. The Ancients knew and practised it, 
but, with rare exceptions, they held it to be inferior. They 
held the toreutists in the highest esteem of all, and in their 
eyes these were the masters and the only initiators of plastic 
art. Thus for us metal-working will mainly, if not exclusively, 
represent the achievement of ancient sculpture. 

Of course it is easy to show that metal-working includes 
within itself and implies many an art and many an industry of 
inferior order which is dependent upon it and which would 
never have been conceived without it. Such is glyptic art,* 
which makes use of hard and precious materials and which 
chisels and hollows out intaglios or cuts away from the 
upstanding relief of cameos; such, too, is the art of the medal 
_maker, who makes coins and matrices for currency,” or that of 
the gold- and silversmith who chisels gold and silver vases, 
who sets and incrusts emblemata and protomés and does 
beaten metal work. So, too, the makers of mirrors, lamps 
and candelabra, articles made entirely of metal and in which 
the same technique is followed. Finally, to mount a stage 
higher, bas-reliefs of all kinds, such as those which decorate 
funerary stele and are carried along the friezes of altars and 
temples, although they may arise from a different conception 
and are not necessarily later than sculpture in the round, 
have the same origin, with certain differences, and belong 
to the same art. And it is unnecessary to add that it was the 
same with that composite art of which not an example remains 
to us to-day, but which, owing to the luxury and refinement of 
the means employed, seemed to the Ancients extraordinarily 
suited for rendering divine energy; I speak of the great 
chryselephantine sculpture: the goldsmith and the bronze- 
easter were at their happiest and best in the intricacies of 
_ the different portions which had to be united into a whole, 
the complicated adjustment of supports and armatures, the 
skilled combination of alloys and colours, in the diligently 
sought effects of harmony or contrast in smooth surfaces and 
shadowed folds; in subtle mechanical problems and refinements 
in the play of light—in all of which the inventive and sensitive 
soul of the Hellene took special delight. 

Among the Greeks painting, whether the decorations 

1 CII-IV. 2 XCVI-CII. 


34 INTRODUCTION 


covering the walls of the porticoes and temples, the votive 
offerings placed in the sanctuaries, or the ordinary small 
picture, played a réle and exercised an influence whose 
importance it is impossible to overrate. It was not without 
close relations with sculpture, although polychromy, always 
known, was no longer practised in the great period except with 
moderation: furthermore, it was necessary and legitimate 
in this land of strong light; and, in the ordinarily gloomy 
temples whose interior could only be seen through the open 
doors, it was essential to make use of vivid paintings and to 
have recourse to hard and clear-cut tones. Over and above 
this particular and-subordinate use, painting was in evidence 
everywhere—on the interior and exterior walls of portico 
and temple, in the lesches where people met together, and 
in the halls where judgments were given, on funerary monu- 
ments and altars, inside the houses, on the furniture and even 
on the bodies of the most everyday crockery. ‘There needed 
but a plain surface for this most expressive of all the arts to 
depict not only the form but the colour of the outside world; 
on the other hand, although the means employed were simple, 
the task was a difficult one, and the progress made in technique 
could not but be slow: the artist’s eye and hand had to acquire 
habit and dexterity, the development of which we cannot 
follow but which was encouraged by the extraordinary favour 
of the public. The public loved the painters and competed 
enthusiastically for their masterpieces, whence the immediate 
success with which they met and the influence they exercised 
both in Greece and beyond her borders. 

Thus sculpture and painting admirably sum up for us the 
creative effort of the Hellenes—or can do so, It is in these 
two, major arts that we shall principally seek our examples, 
and the reason for this is so obvious that we need not insist 
on it further. It remains only to decide on the nature of the 
documents of which we shall make use—whether we shall 
specially seek the replicas or prefer the original and anonymous 
monuments. 

We have seen that we have a mass of small votive anjeats 
which date from the 6th, 5th, and 4th centuries, that is to say 
the actual period in which the masterpieces were a-preparing 
or were created. These objects consist, for example, of coins,? 


+ XCVI ff. 


INTRODUCTION 35 


a source of knowledge of the first order, which archeologists 
too often neglect to tap and in which they have only sought 
reproductions of celebrated groups or statues. Many of 
these coins can be dated, sometimes with precision, which 
permits one to estimate the progress of the industry almost 
from day to day while taking into account the restraining 
effects, as at Athens, of what may be called official archaicism. 
The terra cottas' and vases? are neither public nor State 
works—except, if you will, certain panathenaic amphore— 
but the humble potters or the koroplastes who modelled and 
decorated them could not help but be influenced by the great 
artists from the very fact that they were their contemporaries 
and that they dwelt at the doors, and as it were, in the very 
shadow of their studios, and if we know how to identify that 
influence we should be able to recognize and seize upon it in 
the productions of the potters. So, too, in the case of the 
founders who made the small bronzes, the authors of funerary 
statues,® the marble-cutters to whom we owe the mortuary 
stelee,* and a fortiori the decorators of the temples. All 
these things are contemporaneous, and, albeit in a different 
degree, they are all animated by the same spirit: we shall find 
everywhere among them the visible reflection of the great 
artists and more especially the mark of the influence exercised 
by their masterpieces. 

It is now clear that we shall rather seek out the modest 
though exact and faithful original documents than indirect 
and later replicas of celebrated works. These marble re- 
productions, made at a later date and by the Romans in an 
alien material, are from the hands of artisans who were in- 
capable of copying with exactitude and who generally imi- 
tated rather than copied.° The qualities of the original 
could not but disappear in this transmission through so 
many intermediaries, and we must put down a great deal to 
inexperience, awkwardness and ignorance. If we cannot 
expect the humble decorators of Pompeii to give us any idea 
of a picture by Parrhasius or Zeuxis, it will be understood 
that neither can the marble-cutters who worked for the free- 
men in the times of the Cesars or even for their masters, 
give us the originals which they imitated, as often as not, at 


1 CV ff. 2 CXXIX ff. 3 LXIIl. 
‘ LXIV. 5 VI, vol. i, p. 318 ff. 


36 INTRODUCTION 


second or third hand. The most skilled of them, living in 
another period, had neither the necessary training of the eye 
nor the workshop traditions, and even the aspect of the times 
was changed. If we are to construct a history of Greek art 
we shall often, for want of something better, have to fall back 
on these replicas in which we shall at least find a memory of 
the vanished masterpieces—but since what we seek in par- 
ticular is to get at the essential character and hall-mark 
of Greek art, we are more likely to meet with it and to find 
it more clear-cut and well-marked in those less pretentious 
and more modest productions conceived under the imme- 
diate inspiration of and in contact with the great master- 
pieces. A stricter method obliges us to have if not exclusive 
at all events preferential recourse to that contemporary 
evidence which alone can give us exact and certain results 
and which will enable us to recognize the essence and very 


soul of Greek art. 


SCHEMA 


In order to understand Greek art more is required than the 
mere contemplation of Greek works of art or the experience 
of the exsthetic emotions they produce. Admiration, if it 
is to be justified, demands a knowledge of the spiritual and 
material necessities which stimulated the artist to create, 
of his character and his environment and the means of realiza- 
tion at his disposal. Only then has one the right to proclaim 
the eternal beauty of Greek art and to marvel at the manner 
in which it has shed its radiance all over the world. 

The questions with which we have briefly to deal in this 
book are the following: 


I. Tae Arm of Art. ART AND THE CITY 


Art, the social phenomenon, is clearly the reflection of 
the Hellenic city, its political aspirations, religious beliefs, 
manners and ranks of life; it is, likewise, their glorification. 


Il. THe AGENCIES oF REALIZATION. GROUPS AND 
INDIVIDUALS 


The artists who realize this art differ among themselves 
in ethnic origin, in the regional or local traditions of the 
schools to which they belong, and in their own personality— 
so many divergent elements which explain the variety of the 
aspects of that art. 


III. REALIZATION. TECHNICAL PROBLEMS 


These artists learn their craft; they fix the kind, form, 
type and subject—in a word they determine the mould in 
which their plastic thought is cast. This is a slow acquisition 
of technique in which a still awkward hand struggles with its 
material before it masters it, in which vision, faulty to begin 
with, gradually becomes perfected. 

37 


38 ART IN GREECE 


IV. CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF GREEK ART. THE 
EVOLUTION OF THE IDEAL 


The esthetics of the Hellenes become revealed in their 
characteristic traits while this conquest of the material is 
in progress. For us these traits will be illuminating. Certain 
among them persist throughout changing times, groups and 
persons. Others are modified with the centuries, and the 
ideal evolves in diverse phases. 


CoNcLUSION. THE PLACE OF GREEK ART IN THE 
History oF CIVILIZATION 


Having acquainted ourselves with the moving principle 
of Greek art, its outward appearance and its specific ideal, 
we shall be able to determine its place in esthetic evolution— 
its debt and its reactions to the civilizations which pre- 
ceded and surrounded it throughout its existence, and that 
which it gave, in its turn, to the ancient world and to the 
modern world that has succeeded it.’ 


1 We shall give in footnotes such references only as are strictly 
indispensable for the identification of the monuments mentioned in the 
text, and those which are best known. 


PART ONE 
THE AIM OF GREEK ART. ART AND THE CITY 


Wuat function did the Greeks assign to art? Do not let 
us seek the answer from the ancient writers, the poets and 
philosophers; nor discuss, with Plato and Aristotle, the 
nature of the beautiful; and let us beware of losing ourselves, 
as they did, and as many modern authors have lost themselves, 
among the clouds of metaphysical zsthetics. Let us go 
direct to the monuments themselves and seek the answer 
from these alone: they will supply us with actual evidence 
of what the Greeks asked from their art, and what they 
obtained from it. 

These monuments support the truth of a formula that 
has become banal—that art is the expression of society. 
There are certain cases in which this assertion can be contested, 
for it is assuredly not absolute; yet in Greece, more than 
anywhere else, art does reveal the intimate relation which 
links it with the environment out of which it has grown and 
from which it takes its particular colour and receives its 
mission; art is the humble servant of society as well as its 
mirror. 

The characters which we shall point out are there from 
the beginning and are maintained in all their purity almost 
to the close of the 5th century. Then we shall see this social 
ideal becoming modified, while the transformation of society 
which came about from the 4th century onwards is accom- 
panied by new features which, however, do not oust the older 
ones but exist side by side with and attenuate them. 


39 


CHAPTER I 
THE ARTIST AND THE PUBLIC. TRADITION 


THE first thing to be noted is the close collaboration between 
artist and public. The artist does not seek violently to 
break his relations with the public or to destroy its visual 
and mental habits in order to substitute his own personal 
conceptions; he has no wish to be original at all costs, despising 
everything that is not his own work. The modern artist, 
considering himself to be a superior being, takes pride in 
this rupture with the public which he even maintains as 
necessary. Only too often there exists between the two a 
complete absence of spiritual and visual comprehension, of 
which contemporary exhibitions furnish abundant instances. 
There was nothing of this kind in Greece: the artist could 
not, nor did he desire to abandon the language of art common 
to all, which all might read, in order to substitute for it an 
unknown idiom. 

Nor was there any break with the past, thanks to this 
maintenance of contact. There was no disconcerting shock 
in artistic evolution, no sudden abandonment of motif or 
style for the sake of some entirely new creation springing up 
from nowhere. On the contrary, Greek art presents an 
amazing continuity from its beginning to its end. Artists 
quietly accepted tradition: they did not, as contemporary 
artists too often do, seek to fight against their predecessors, 
but rather to push on further by their own exertions along 
the same road, contributing something to the common effort, 
as their predecessors had done before them. They had no false 
pride about what they owed to their predecessors or about 
acknowledging themselves to be their pupils: téxvav eidotes x 
mpotépwv, the two Argive sculptors, Eutelidas and Chryso- 
themis, described themselves in the 6th century. They do not 
give their paternal names unless they are pupils of their fathers, 
and the disciples of Pasiteles even substitute their master’s 
name for their own patronymic. Certain artists, who were 

41 


42 ART IN GREECE 


rather more of innovators, especially when individualism 
came to be developed in the beginning of the 4th century, 
prided themselves on having only Nature as their master, 
but Lysippus, who lays claim to this independence, neverthe- 
less faithfully continues in the tradition of Polyclitus’ athletic 
statuary, and perhaps even in that of Pythagoras of Rhegium;* 
he is but one link in the long chain of sculptural art, and there 
is not one of his innovations that cannot be seen in embryo 
before his day. Indeed, maybe there is not a single invention 
attributed by the Ancients to any one Greek artist which was 
not anticipated.?, The rhythm, supposed to have been intro- 
duced by Polyclitus in the human body in repose, was already 
in existence from the beginning of the 5th century from the 
moment the old straight frontal profile was broken. His 
square, thick-set proportions and the flattened head of his 
statues are those of his predecessors of the 6th century, 
and Polymedes of Argos foreshadowed the Argive master a 
century before that master’s day in his two Kouroi at Delphi.’ 

So is progress achieved as the result of a multiplicity of 
small accretions. Look at the stiff archaic Kouros !* It is 
but a schema of the human body with its arms pressed into 
its sides, its solidly united legs, its sketchily rendered muscles. 
Then one leg is advanced—the left; next the arms detach 
themselves from the trunk and are flexed; the shape of the 
body and its musculature, at first ill-rendered, become more 
and more life-like. The straight frontal profile is broken, 
the weight of the body is now carried on one leg whilst the 
other is flexed, and attitudes and rhythms, hitherto unknown, 
become possible. Thus is the way prepared for the perfection 
of the second half of the 5th century, and for the even more 
supple rhythms and skilled modelling of the 4th century 
and the too obvious science of the Hellenists. The entire 
history of Greek art could be written on a single theme. 

For this reason it is very difficult to make clean-cut 
divisions in this history. Each work, each new style, is 
linked with those which have gone before and have fore- 
Shadowed it; to understand them properly their origins 
have to be sought very far back and their destiny has to be 
followed very far. How could one lay claim to know anything 


1 CLXIV, p. 39 ff., 126. 2 VI, vol. i, p. 269 ff. 
3 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 452 ff. 4 LXVIII. 


THE AIM OF GREEK ART 43 


about the style of Phidias and his originality unless one knows 
that it did not appear suddenly with Phidias but was already 
in being in the first half of the 5th century ?! Or of that of 
Polyclitus, unless one linked it up with the workers who 
were earlier than the Argive school—with Glaucus and Diony- 
sius,” with Ageladas, and even earlier still with Polymedes ? 
On the other hand, although the predominant idealism of 
the 5th century makes way for a predominant realism towards 
the 4th century, it does persist, with its themes and its style, 
up till the end in Greek art, and it lasts on to inspire the 
Roman artist. Not a form, technical process, or style dies 
out entirely; it does but retire into the background there 
to survive with somewhat diminished vitality. We must 
then notice in every period the persistence of these divers 
currents which lend great variety to Greek art under a cloak 
of apparent uniformity. 

This may appear monotonous to some. The artist does 
not seek to multiply ad infinitum the forms in which he clothes 
his thought, since he has no desire to be original at all costs 
or to break with the public but on the contrary to respond 
to its wishes and express its needs—because he desires to 
carry on the tradition. A few themes suffice—the naked 
athlete, erect, in repose or in violent movement, and the 
draped female form; or, in temples, the great unchanging 
mythological scenes, and for funerary reliefs the image of 
the dead and those near to him; or the stereotyped features 
of the gods. In a word, essentially Hellenic themes which 
best respond to the needs of their religious and patriotic 
life. These themes the artist receives from his predecessors 
or else he imitates what his contemporaries are doing, merely 
introducing shades of variation. They seem to him good 
because they are known to and appreciated by the public, 
and he goes on repeating them throughout the centuries. 
Look at the hundreds of statues of male nudes, erect or in 
repose, which follow one another in succession from the rigid 
_Kouros of the 6th century up to the last examples of the 
series at the decline of Greek art: is it not always the same 
image for ever expressing the same idea? But what nuances 
in the attitudes and in the rhythm of the limbs from the 
time that the straight frontal profile was broken, towards 500, 

1 LXXVIII, p. 477 ff. 2 LXXIII, p. 117. 


44. ART IN GREECE 


and when a closer study of the muscles took the place of the 
old conventions! The artist’s originality is not so much 
in the invention of a new subject as in the perfecting of 
technique, in the truth to nature of his rendering of the human 
form, in the harmony of his rhythms, in symmetria, the 
science of the modelling and in the thousand little details 
which differentiate one work of art from another and intro- 
duce a perpetual diversity into the apparent monotony of 
the same motif, so that it is constantly undergoing evolution. 
Originality shows itself within the bounds of tradition. 

The modern artist, individualistic to excess, tries to be 
as different as he can from his confréres, and he jealously 
guards his creations from being copied or imitated by them. 
The idea of plagiarism, of intellectual and artistic proprietor- 
ship, did not exist in Greece. Should someone create a motif 
or some new detail which the public receives favourably, all 
imitate it and bring it within the common domain of art. 
A work of art was not personal but social; a reflection of the 
community, it remains the property of the community. 
Any idea of disloyalty never entered their minds and nobody 
dreamed of claiming a work of art as his personal property. 
High art motifs passed into industrial art at once, more 
particularly into vase-painting.’ And here painters copied 
from one another; Pampheus copied from Nicosthenes and 
Nicosthenes copied the boats of Exekias; Chachrylion imitated 
the ephebic scenes of Epictetus.2, There was no barrier of 
any sort set up against such imitation; on the contrary such 
was the very spirit, the principle of Greek sesthetics. How 
many were the imitations of a famous work of art! The 
copies of the boy plucking a thorn from his foot, of the Dory- 
phoros and of the Diadumenos, are legion! And innumerable 
are the apparently new themes which in reality are adapta- 
tions contrived by the addition of some attitude, a change of 
sex, age or name, or a transposition from the round into 
relief, or from painting into relief—in a word, by some small 
detail which, without rendering the prototype unrecognizable, 
yet lends it new life which will enable it to survive for 
centuries.? ‘ 

1 CXLV, vol. i, p. 579; iii, p. 628. 


* CXLY, vol. ili, p. 662; CXLIV, vol. ix, p. 328. 
3 VI, vol. i, p. 318 ff. 


CHAPTER II 
THE USEFUL AND THE BEAUTIFUL! 


Ir is generally admitted that the Greeks were an artist people; 
with them good taste and a refined appreciation of the 
beautiful were not the prerogatives of the élite, but were 
common to all. ‘‘ Not a thing that has been dug up in 
Hellenic soil but has this flower of elegance, this exquisite 
and sober feeling for harmony, which gives the impression 

of a race supremely gifted for art.’’? In the humblest monu- 
_ ments of industrial art one feels that the workman is every 
whit as fully alive to the lines of his vase or the proper 
adaptation of his decoration as a great painter or sculptor. 
This notion, however, must not be exaggerated, as has some- 
times been done, if we are to avoid hasty generalizations and 
that lack of fine discrimination combined with realization of 
complexity which mars so many works on Greek art. Though 
the average of artistic production in Greece may be much 
superior to that of other lands, it should be acknowledged 
frankly that many of the objects dug up in the course of 
excavations do not justify rapturous admiration. But let 
us freely admit, since it is the obvious truth, that nowhere 
else is there so close a relationship between the productions 
of “ high art’ and the “‘ minor arts,”’ nor so general a care 
for the beauty of form and line independently of the value 
or destination of the object. 

Is this instinctive—a natural gift—with the Greeks, or 
is it the result of especially favourable social conditions ? 
Here, as throughout science, we are faced with the eternal 
problem, the question of an innate or an acquired character. 
Countless anecdotes and innumerable features bear witness 
to the greater refinement of esthetic sensibility to be found 
among the Greeks than anywhere else, a refinement which 
is responsible for their having outdistanced other ancient 
peoples, less gifted in this respect than themselves, so that 


1 CLXXXVI-VIII. 2 CX, p. ii. 
45 


46 ART IN GREECE 


they were able to impose their own conceptions on such peoples 
wherever they have come into contact with them, and this 
before ever they imposed them on Rome and through Rome 
on the modern world. 

Nevertheless, the expression of esthetic feeling was 
facilitated by the rdle which the Greeks recognized as belonging 
to art. For them it is no mere luxury to be enjoyed only by 
the privileged few, nor is beauty exclusively reserved for rare 
and costly articles. Art is a necessity linked up with the 
very existence of the city and the individual and it is always 
with them in all they do from the smallest to the most 
important acts of their lives. Beauty as beauty does not 
exist unto itself but has ever a practical end in view. This 
principle, whose effects are to be seen in the earliest produc- 
tions and which is maintained more or less markedly through- 
out the existence of Greek art, was elevated into a doctrine 
by the philosophers, and Socrates admits that the agreeable, 
the good, the true and the beautiful are one. And for him 
the beautiful is that which is useful, and all practical articles 
which exactly fulfil their purpose are beautiful. ‘* Think 
you that the good and the beautiful are not the same? Know 
you not that all that is beautiful for any reason is for that 
same reason good? Virtue is not good in one case and 
beautiful in another; so men, likewise, are called good and 
beautiful, and for the same motives; that which from within 
the body of man makes beauty to be apparent makes also 
goodness to be apparent; in fine, all that is useful to men is 
beautiful and good in relation to the use which can be made 
of it.—What ! is a basket of manure, then, also a beautiful 
thing ?7—Yes, by Zeus, and a golden shield is ugly from the 
moment that the one is meet for its use and the other is not 

So, too, when Socrates said that the beauty of a 
building consists in its usefulness it seems to me that he was 
teaching the best principle of building.”” A cuirass is beautiful 
when it fits the shape of the body it is to protect and when it 
allows of the easy movement of the limbs.t That which the 
Greeks admired in the human body such as it is represented 
in statuary is assuredly the lines and contours and the 
rhythms of the pose and gestures, but it is also its perfect 
physical development fitting it for the duties of a citizen who 

1 Xenophon, Recollections of Socrates. 


THE USEFUL AND THE BEAUTIFUL 47 


has to compete in the exercises of the palestra and in the 
great national games, to be ready to fight against his country’s 
foes. The beauty of these athletes’ bodies lies in the har- 
monious concordance of their form, their muscles in action, 
and the act which they have to accomplish; it varies from 
one to another, ‘‘ as a man who is skilled in racing differs from 
a man who is a skilled wrestler; as the beauty of a shield 
devised for defence differs completely from the beauty of a 
javelin designed to be thrown with force and speed.’* An 
otherwise undecorated vase of harmonious shape which is 
well turned, perfectly fired and faultlessly glazed is a work 
of art just as is a statue; the potters are as ready to put their 
signatures upon it as upon an expensively decorated piece, 
and on the same grounds.” 

When we admire Greek vases,* the delicacy of their design 
and the elegance of their contours, we sometimes forget that 
they contained liquids—oils and wines—and that this was 
their true function, which came before delighting the eye. 
The Greek, however, has never forgotten that the principal 
role of industrial art is utility. Unlike modern artisans, he 
would never have conceived a piece of furniture whose over- 
crowded decoration and involved lines render it unfit for use 
and which invite the reproach Cochin addressed to his con- 
temporaries when he asked them “ not to change the purpose 
of things but to remember that a candlestick must be 
straight and upright in order to hold a light, and that the 
grease-guard of the socket must be concave in order to catch 
the running wax and not convex so that it overflows in 
cascades onto the candlestick.”” In Greece the decoration 
is not an addition stuck on like a non-essential plating, but 
is an integral part of the object and often has a practical 
purpose in itself. The beautiful black glaze on vases, 
inherited from the Mycenezans,* gradually invades more and 
more of the surface of the receptacle together with the red- 
figure technique; the ceramist appreciated it because it enabled 
him to get a fine and delicate design better than with the 
earlier incisions, and also for its pictorial qualities, its shades 
ranging from black to clear yellow which, according to the 

1 Xenophon, Recollections of Socrates. 


2 CXLIV, vol. ix, p. 353 ff. 3 OXXIX ff. 
4 CXLY, vol. iii, p. 666. 


48 ART IN GREECE 


density of the shade, indicate the details of muscles, drapery 
and hair, and for its warm olive-green tones. But this glaze 
mainly owes its vogue and its secular use to its technical 
qualities—the solidity it acquires in the firmg and the im- 
permeable surface with which it covers the vase. It is 
possible that the substitution in the second half of the 6th 
century of the red for the black figure is the result of practical 
rather than esthetic considerations and springs from the 
desire to give the receptacle greater impermeability, and to 
restrict those portions which are bare earthenware. The 
redder colour of the Attic vases, obtained by mixing red ochre 
with clay, is itself not so much due to a seeking after poly- 
chrome effects as to the desire to diminish the porosity of 
the clay, and to give a better flavour to the wine. The 
triumph of Attic ceramics, which is to be seen towards the 
close of the 6th century in all the rival ceramic markets, as, 
for instance, that of Corinth, arises not so much from the 
beauty of its shapes and decoration but pre-eminently from 
commercial considerations—it conserves the liquids better 
and gives them a better flavour.’ 

On the other hand, for a Greek a statue or a painting is 
not the product of an entirely disinterested art. It always 
had some purpose—to represent a divinity and to link that 
divinity with his or her temple; to honour such divinity by 
making a votive offering; to commemorate the dead by his 
presentment and by recording his deeds; to tell and teach 
the great facts of religion and of national life. ‘‘ Among the 
ancients the beautiful is only the high relief of the useful ” 
(Stendhal). The existence of all these works of art is justified 
solely by their réle in the social life. The theory of “ art 
for art’s sake,” the germ of which is possibly to be found in 
the Hellenistic writers,? would have been incomprehensible 
to Phidias, Polyclitus and their contemporaries. Yet, in 
no period, not even when art becomes more individualistic 
and more detached from social life, does the practical aim of 
art yield place entirely to exclusively asthetic and emotive 
considerations. It has often been said that ‘‘ the foundation 
of Greek esthetics is the beautiful harnessed to the service of 
the useful ”’ (Pottier). 

The useful and the beautiful, ‘‘ high art ” and the “‘ minor 

1 CXLV, vol. iii, pp. 610, 646; CXLIX. 2 VI, vol. iii, p. 338, 


THE USEFUL AND THE BEAUTIFUL 49 


arts,” are not yet divorced from one another. For the 
Greek there is no gulf dividing the plain earthen undecorated 
vase which holds wine and oil from the sculpture of Phidias; 
there is simply a quantitative difference in the formula of 
beauty and utility of which both are compounded. Knowing 
that all techniques have their part to play in social life, the 
artist of the one no more considers that it is derogatory to 
him to decorate an industrial article than did the Renaissance 
artists. It is true that Isocrates declares that one must not 
compare Phidias with the koroplastes or Zeuxis and Parrhasius 
with painters of ex-votos. But there was not that division 
which nowadays separates a potter from a painter or a stone- 
cutter from a sculptor. The ancients, in fact, never clearly 
distinguished between artists and craftsmen; both belong to 
_ the class of manual workers. In primitive times they were 
despised, but this prejudice disappeared with time except in 
certain Dorian cities, such as Sparta, where a citizen is for- 
bidden to gain his living by a trade. Solon obliged the 
Athenians to give evidence of their means of subsistence; 
Pericles praises work: “‘It is no shame for any man to 
acknowledge poverty; but it is shameful not to work to 
overcome it.’' Socrates recommends wholesome work to 
Aristarchus: ‘* Which are the wiser men, those who remain at 
ease or those who occupy themselves in doing something 
useful ? Which are more in the right, those who work or 
those who, without doing anything, deliberate on the means 
of subsistence ?”’ 

It is essential, if one would understand the fundamental 
character of Greek art, to take note of this perpetual inter- 
penetration of two elements which to modern folk appear to 
be independent or even antagonistic. In the study of ancient 
ceramics it is erroneous to attribute to its authors thoughts 
that were above all exsthetic, when they were preoccupied 
with practical problems both technical and economic. It is 
an analogous error to study the works of the great sculptors 
without considering the purpose of the work or the religious 
or civil idea it contains, in short to eliminate anesthetic 
elements. Beauty is not an end in itself in Greece, but a 
means to an end. | 

Beauty, for all that, is not neglected; the artist does not 


1 Thucydides, ii, 40. 
4 


50 ART IN GREECE 


allow himself to be subjugated by the needs of social life to 
such an extent as to leave them masters of the field. His 
work is not solely useful in the cult of the gods and of the 
dead, or in the glorification of the city: over and above this 
it is clothed with beauty. It is just this which distinguishes 
Greek art from so much other art, such as that of Egypt or of 
Mesopotamia where the esthetic aim is subordinate to the 
social aim. And this secondary importance attaching to 
beauty is one of the causes—we shall find others—which has 
prevented these arts from following in the same steps as the 
art of Greece and from freeing themselves, as Greek art has 
done, from the old conventions which regulated them des- 
potically up to the very end. 

Thanks to its profoundly utilitarian essence, art in Greece, 
however admirable it became, remains what it has always 
. been and everywhere will be in its beginnings, a language, a 
means of expressing human thoughts and needs, that com- 
munion between men which Tolstoy claims that it should be. 
The thoughts it materialized in visual forms are highly 
diverse but they are always comprehended within this limit; 
it is for the archeologist to understand these forms and read 
them. What are they? They are the necessities of the 
Greek city—its religion, political constitution, social ranks, 
historical events, and manners. 


CHAPTER III 
ART AND RELIGION? 


In its beginnings and for long centuries afterwards art was 
everywhere the handmaiden of the supernatural. Even 
before he thought of decorating and beautifying his person 
and his abode, or of giving concrete form to his esthetic 
emotion for the delectation of himself and others, man knew 
the urgent need to satisfy his instinctive feelings where those 
mysterious forces were concerned which surrounded him 
in his terrestrial life as in his death and future existence— 
forces against which he had to protect himself, which he 
desired to bend to his own desires and which he reverenced 
because he feared them. 

Go as far back into the past as we may, we see art always 
penetrated by magic, the primordial and crude form of religion, 
which inspired the thought of the Magdalenian hunters just 
as it inspires primitive men today. The theory that art in 
its origin was bound up with magic is challenged by certain 
men of erudition, and, indeed, it should not be too exclusive 
and eliminate esthetic sentiment altogether; weak though 
it may have been as yet, which responded to other emotive 
tendencies of man’s nature, but it would seem to be the case 
that szsthetic needs yielded priority of place to the expression 
of the more urgent needs of magic. After all, have not most 
human activities grown up in the shadow of magic and 
religion before they cast off this mystic tutelage and secured 
independence by becoming secularized ? 

Greek art no more than any other escaped this supernatural 
bondage.” At first, images on tombs did not so much serve to 
commemorate the dead as to offer necessary support to his 
soul, as in Egypt; his soul was bound by the magical power 
of the counterfeit presentment and by the rites which conse- 
crated this effigy. The people of Orchomenos were aware 
of this when, in order to deliver their land from the wandering 


1 CXCI-CC. 2 CLXXXVIII; LXIII, p. 3 ff; CXCIX. 
51 


52 ART IN GREECE 


spirit of Acteon which was devastating it, they made a figure 
of him in bronze and fastened it to the rock by iron clamps. 
Unhewn and hewn stones, statues, and stele are so many 
material abodes for the soul of the departed. Many among 
the numerous terra cotta and stone figurines in graves were 
placed there with this end in view. It may be, as in Egypt, 
the soul of the dead, that human-headed bird; sometimes it: 
is bearded and helmeted like the warrior it recalls. Or it 
may be the dead man, that horseman so frequent in the 
graves of the 8th and 9th centuries, or else a recumbent figure 
reclining on a banqueting divan.* Living by the power of 
the image in the darkness of the tomb, the dead is surrounded 
by a band of servitors who prepare his food and carry out 
the thousand behests necessary to his maintenance and enter- 
tainment. Hence those clay statuettes which look like genre 
representations” but which are placed there with a profoundly 
religious intent—cooks at their oven, launderers at the spring, 
kneaders of bread and women grinding corn in a mortar, and 
hairdressers, which recall the analogous images buried in the 
Egyptian necropoles where their function is the same. All 
these folk are really alive and really doing the things re- 
presented because the image is equivalent to the reality 
and constrains the reality to be. The dead is thus assured of 
life in the tomb, a belief which persists in a confused fashion 
throughout antiquity, even after the later idea of a Hades 
was grafted on to it. These female and animal figurines 
placed with their dead or offered as ex-votos to a god are very 
common in the archaic period. And in the earliest times they 
also reveal the presence of this belief in magic. They are 
intended, by the virtue of the image, to cause women to be 
fruitful and to perpetuate the race—the fountain of Hellenic 
influence; and to cause cattle and beasts to multiply and bring 
greater prosperity to their owner. If male images, on the 
contrary, are rare, it is because man, the master of woman 
and cattle—to which she was likened of old—desired to avoid 
any interference with his own person. 

Was it not necessary to defend oneself against the powers 
of evil which surrounded the living and the dead alike? 
Recourse was had to amulets and talismans of all kinds: 


1 LXIII, p. 9 ff. 2 Pottier, BCH, 1900, p. 510; LXIII, p. 18. 
3 CXI, p. 16. 


PLATE I 


GORGON. Athens (Acropolis Museum) 


6th Century 


[face p. 52 


ART AND RELIGION 53 


statues, reliefs, figurines and paintings which represented the 
protecting god; prophylactic images such as the eye or the 
phallus or hideous Gorgons (Pl. I), and grotesque and ugly 
creatures which would cause the adversary to burst out 
laughing and thus disarm him. Graves were garnished with 
them and they were used to adorn the dwelling-place and the 
walls and squares of cities; and people wore them on their 
persons—because the magical weapons were just as efficacious 
as real ones. 

Was not the idol—the statue—the seat (0c) of divine 
power, and did it not retain this divine power just as the 
funerary statue retained the soul of the dead, thus assuring 
the real presence of the divinity amid the faithful ? 

These beliefs in fetichism and magic, which were very 

lively in the early days of Greek civilization, inspired many 
a legend and myth. Pygmalion was not alone in believing 
in the life of the goddess he had made. The golden statues 
placed before the palace of Alcinous talked, and those carved 
by Deedalus walked, while Athena taught the Rhodians to 
make the images which one met wandering about the roads; 
when the statue of the athlete Theagenes, by Glaucias the 
AXginetan, was insulted, it fell on the aggressor and crushed 
him, and it was condemned by the Thasians as though it had 
been a living person, and thrown into the sea. 

We should bear these beliefs in mind when we come to 
study Greek art. They explain in part the genesis of certain 
genres, such as divine and mortal images, with their use and 
their outward appearance. Heracles, kneeling, bends his 
bow against the enemy on one of the gates of the walls of 
Thasos dating from the first quarter of the 5th century: 
he is protecting the city, ready to speed the arrow against 
him who would bring evil from without. But close by 
Dionysus and his train, turned towards the interior of the 
city, bring abundance and prosperity. About the year 448 
Pericles made Phidias erect on the summit of the Athens 
Acropolis a statue of Athena, armed with lance and buckler 
and helmeted, who defends her city. At that period this 
was not merely symbolical; it was a reality. The divinity, 
incarnate in her image, is present among her adorers and 
protects them. Any lese- majesty towards these statues 


1 RA, xi, 1908, p. 25 ff. 


54 ART IN GREECE 


was sacrilege, and it was sacrilege for a mortal to wish to 
join his portrait to that of the goddess, as Phidias did.* 

How should we ever understand those thousands of terra 
cotta figurines” which fill the sanctuaries, the private dwel- 
lings and the graves throughout Greek antiquity unless we 
bear in mind the ideas, very primitive in their origin, which 
gave them birth’? Doubtless these ideas became obscured 
with the passage of time, and the themes, undergoing altera- 
tion, developed. An abyss that is not only esthetic but 
spiritual would seem to stretch between the charming young 
woman of Tanagra® or Myrina’* draped in her kilted tunic, 
and the rude archaic flat figurines or those with “ birds’ 
beaks.’’? The artist of the 4th century no longer gives any 
profound meaning to these images, but he takes delight in 
reproducing visions which have pleased him; nevertheless, 
by keeping up the custom he is docilely carrying on the 
ancient rites.°~ 

Maybe it was a superstitious fear which held back for so 
long the coming of realism in personal portraiture.’ 


* * * 


Independently, however, of magic and superstition, Greek 
art is still the docile servant of official religion. It keeps 
this character, which is older in origin than any other, through- 
out its entire existence, even after the new tendency towards 
secularization saw the light. It serves the gods and the dead. 

The typical creation of Greek art in architecture is not 
a civil but a religious building. It was towards the temple® 
that all artistic effort converged from the time when, the long 
experimentation of the 7th and 6th centuries having achieved 
its object, it found its final form on the Acropolis in the 
5th century in the shape of the Doric Parthenon.® The ruins 
_ of Greece are essentially ruined temples. The Acropoles 
at Athens,’° Delphi," and Olympia,” are so many sanctuaries. 


1 REG, 1920, p. 291 ff. 2 CV-XIV. 3 CVII. 

* USL. 5 CXI, Pl. v. 6 CX, p. 263 ff. 
7 VI, vol. iP. 199; ii, p 368; VII, p. 51. 

8 XXXVI ff * XXXIX, XLIV. 10 XI-XII. 


11 Fouilles de Delphes (1892-1901); ; Bourguet’s Les ruines de Delphes, 
1914. 

12 Olympia. Die Ergebnisse der von dem deutschen Reich veranstalt- 
eter Ausgrabung, 1890-97, 5 vols. fol. and 5 maps. 


ART AND RELIGION 55 


The commercial city of Delos! develops under the protection 
of Apollo, the god of the sacred island. Other buildings, 
public and private, offer us rarer traces, and our knowledge 
of the Hellenic dwelling-house? in the classical period is mainly 
based on texts and vase paintings. Built, as they were, of 
light material, thieves could easily pierce the walls, and 
simple in design, they were not yet constructed with any 
luxurious intention. This simplicity is partially explained 
by an open-air life in the agora and by the clement climate, 
but it is also in part due to the fact that the religious edi- 
fice still monopolized attention. In the 4th century, and 
especially in Hellenistic times when religious sentiment was 
in abeyance and man had asserted himself, palaces were built, 
and sumptuous and durable houses whose ruins survive 
side by side with those of temples in the Hellenistic and 
Greco-Roman cities of Delos, Priene* and Pergamum.* 

At first luxury and beauty were entirely reserved for 
the gods. For the gods it was that the artist, in measure as 
his hand grew more cunning, successively made use of wood, 
soft and easily worked stone, and then marble, that his gift 
might last for ever.° It was that he might honour the gods 
that the architect patiently studied the best proportions 
to give to his building, the lines of his columns, and the form 
of his capitals; that the sculptor worked at tympanum, 
metope and frieze, and that the painter covered with great 
frescoes the walls of the buildings sacred to the cult. The 
greatest masters sculped for the cella of the sacred statue; 
precious ex-votos were heaped up in the interior. Outside, 
in the temenos, there was a forest of statues, images of the 
gods and their worshippers, and of victims offered to them, 
and these were in honour of the city or of private persons. 
People of small means purchased clay figurines from the 
koroplastes and brought them to the sanctuary as testimonies 
to their faith. For many a long day statuary, painting and 
architecture developed under the egis of the divinity. 

Art’s themes were for long exclusively religious. Statuary 
modelled the body of the divinity and of mortals who offered 
up theirimage. Paintings and reliefs recorded the adventures 

1 Exploration archéologique de Délos. * XXXVII, LVI. 


3 Wiegand’s Priene. 4 Aliertimer von Pergamon. 
5 LXXVIII, pp. 3, 21, 101; LX XIX, p. 5. 


56 ART IN GREECE 


of gods and heroes, perpetuated the acts connected with the 
cult and the scenes associated with offerings. Even vase 
painting, although eminently utilitarian, illustrated mythology 
from the moment that it abandoned first the repertory of the 
primitive geometric style, then Oriental decoration, to turn 
by preference to representations of the human figure.* But 
to begin with many of the motifs covering the surfaces of 
vases had a religious or talismanic value. 

Every important act of an individual’s life was inspired 
by the divinity and accompanied by homage. Success was 
besought from the divinity with offerings, and was thanked 
for when obtained. The winners in every kind of competition, 
dramatic or musical—which were cult acts—consecrated their 
prizes to the divinity and erected commemorative monu- 
ments; athletes victorious in combat set up images of them- 
selves in the sanctuary. The faithful placed their own 
images there, which thus assured them divine protection 
thanks to the perpetual character of their offering—which 
was themselves, in plastic form, eternally in the presence of 
the god. 

The gods directed the life of the Hellenic cities; they 
protected them and they received from them their artistic 
reward. The Persian wars permitted Athens to become 
strong and powerful and to build up her great maritime 
empire; the gods, having given the victory, reaped the fruit. 
Their temples, destroyed by the Persians in 480, were rebuilt 
by Pericles with greater beauty than ever, on the Acropolis, 
in the town and in the Attic countryside, and their decoration 
exalted the divine power. Athena Polias received the 
marvellous homage of the Parthenon (inaugurated in 438).? 
One beholds her, there, barely issued from the head of Zeus, 
confirm her supremacy over Poseidon and take possession of 
Attica; then, on the frieze, receive the ritual gift which the 
entire Athenian population brings to her in a long procession. 
She herself, Phidias’ masterpiece, is set up in the centre of 
the cella (Athena Parthenos, 438); outside, she holds in her 
hands the helmet and spear no longer needed (Athena Lemnia, 
ebout 450), and, near by, she stands sentinel, armed (Athena 
Enoplos, called Promachos, about 448). On the balustrade 
of the temple of Athena Nike, the joyous crowd of Victories 


1 CXLY, vol. ii, p. 447, 511. * XXXIX; XLIV. 


ART AND RELIGION 7 57 


make a triumphant procession in her honour, bearing her 
trophy aloft, and bring her a sacrifice as a thank-offering 
(about 408). | 

Greek history, seen in the mirror of art, becomes a history 
of myth, of the gods and heroes who fought the battles of 
Hellas; human deeds are translated into divine exploits. 
Contrary to the case of Assyria and Rome, there are few 
real events before the Hellenistic period, but there are 
combats between Lapiths and Centaurs, Greek heroes and 
Amazons or Trojans, and exploits of Theseus and Heracles. 
It was the Greeks themselves, figuring in this guise, who 
were the vanquishers of the Barbarians and Persians. They 
might have vaunted themselves by being actually represented 
in the doing of these glorious deeds, but they preferred to 
give the honour to their gods and national heroes, since they 
only obtained victory by the aid of the Immortals who came 
and fought at their side. Had they not been seen to take 
part in person in the mélée? Did not Pan appear to the 
Athenian messenger on the Sparta road before the battle of 
Marathon, and did not Theseus fight in the ranks of the 
Athenians with the Attic heroes ? 

Thus art was for long only a form of cult. It was an act 
of faith, a prayer. The frieze of the Panatheneza clearly 
demonstrates it. On the cella of the Parthenon the long 
procession is unrolled of the Athenian people in all its unity 
and diversity; before the assembled gods come priests, 
magistrates, ambassadors, elders, metics, young girls and 
ephebi to give to the goddess who is the incarnation of their 
patria the yellow and violet embroidered peplos, and to thank 
her for her protection. 

The dead whose passage into the beyond brings them near 
to the gods and raises them to the rank of heroes also claim 
the veneration of the living. In the tomb they continue in a 
shadowy existence, or else, pale ghosts, they wander in Hades, 
in the Elysian Fields or the Isles of the Blest, or, maybe, 
they are damned, and suffer the punishments of Tartarus. 
These are contradictory notions, but beliefs do not trouble 
about logic. The dead must be given an abode, the tomb; 
this emasculated existence must be maintained by sacrifices, 
libations and offerings of all kinds placed near by; his soul 
and his body must be provided with support and protected 


58 ART IN GREECE 


against the powers of evil. And when the old animistic ideas 
had become obscured it was necessary to commemorate the 
dead, recall his memory by an effigy, and set up on his grave 
a oyjua. Funerary art ministered to these needs. It built 
tombs, whose form varies according to time and place, in 
which the dead was put, surrounded by grave furniture, arms, 
vases and figurines. It set up a sign on the tomb—a symbolic 
image of a sphinx or siren, a statue’ of the dead in his own 
likeness or in that of a god, a stele? which shows him such as 
he was in his life, a warrior armed, a child playing with a hoop, 
a countryman giving a locust to his dog, a young woman 
looking at the jewels with which she will never more adorn 
herself; or else such as he is in the beyond, seen in his glory, 
heroic, féted like a god and the object of a cult on the part of 
those who survive him. 

Religion penetrates even the industrial arts destined to 
practical ends. It would seem odd, to-day, to paint scenes 
from the Bible with God, Jesus, the Virgin and the saints, 
on vases® containing perfumes or wine. Yet Greek ceramists 
decorated their receptacles not only with secular themes 
such as banquets, ephebic combats and scenes from the 
gyneceum, but with divine and heroic exploits. This pre- 
occupation with religion, like the constant feeling for the 
esthetic, penetrates the most utilitarian articles because any 
of them may be consecrated to the cult of the gods or of the 
dead. The gods, the first craftsmen who created all the 
crafts, continued to protect them and to be their patrons, 
and it was only natural that their products should be offered 
to them. Furthermore, were they not conceived in the 
likeness of men all of whose needs they shared ? On the relief 
of the Acropolis (earlier than 480) the master potter in his 
working garb holds a vase in either hand which he has just 
turned and which he is offering to Athena, protectress of his 
work.* The sanctuaries did not only receive votive statues 
and reliefs but articles of furniture, tripods, cauldrons, shields, 
weapons, earthenware and metal cups and platters, garments— 
everything which Greek industry knew how to make and which 


1 LXTI. 

2 LXII, vol. i, p. 375; ii, p. 189; LXIV; Curtius’ Das griechische 
Grabrelief, 1919. 

3 CXXIX ff. 4 LXXVIII, p. 365. 


ART AND RELIGION 59 


could serve to equip the divine dwelling conceived in the 
image of a human dwelling.’ 

Religion, likewise, is responsible for the spirit in which the 
artist treats his themes and which changes with the changes 
in belief. If we follow the history of a divine type we can 
trace the vicissitudes of the religious sentiment expressing 
itself in that type. Look, for instance, at the changes brought 
about by time in the form and features of Apollo, Dionysus, 
Aphrodite or Eros. What has the Eros of the 5th century, 
the serious young ephebus, in common with the boy-Loves 
of the Alexandrian period ? Or the Aphrodite of the 5th 
century, a vigorous woman chastely clad, with the soft 
voluptuousness of the naked goddess of Hellenistic times ? 
What is there in common between the bearded and garbed 
Dionysus of archaism and the youthful god, nude and 
effeminate, of the Greco-Romans ? And again between the 
virile Apollo of early days and the equivocal ephebus of | 
Praxiteles, between the calm impassivity of these divine 
beings of the 5th century and the dreamy, emotional or even 
suffering expression which the Hellenists give them ? 

Conversely, art reacts on religion. By clothing belief in 
visible form, giving to the gods a material shape and recounting 
their adventures, art lends them a clearly defined character 
and fixes the idea of them. ‘It is impossible to exaggerate 
the influence of the iconographic and plastic arts on the 
life of the soul; one may well say that the whole spiritual life 
of a people undergoes transformation the moment its ideal is 
fixed and rendered sensible by means of an image of the 
gentle features composing that ideal, such as the look of 
suffering on the face of the patient martyr or the expression 
of holy resignation” (Darmesteter). Greek art, essentially 
anthropomorphic, peoples the heavens with gods having all 
the strength and weaknesses of mankind, and it creates a 
divine world which is the counterpart of the world terrestrial. 
As the terrestrial world evolves, so must the divine evolve 
with it, and the character and function of the gods are modified 
in keeping with the corresponding modifications in the human 
sphere. Phidias, said the Ancients, “added something to 
religion,” because, by depicting divine majesty and beauty 
in his Olympian Zeus, he superlatively characterized the 

1 CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘“ Donarium.” 


60 ART IN GREECE 


role of the lord of Heaven; according to Dion Chrysostom, 
one recognized in him “ the god of peace, supremely gentle, 
giver of being and of life and all that is good, the father and 
guardian-saviour of all men.” Henceforward, his features, like 
those of Asclepius, will bear the imprint of goodness; seeing 
them, the faithful will have a new conception of their divinity. 
The general tendency which from the 4th century onwards 
led men’s minds towards realism and the weakening of the 
religious spirit, inspired the artists to produce gods which were 
yet nearer to men than those of old times; in the Hellenistic 
period Olympus is no longer inaccessible, and the gods there 
take part in the humblest of the occupations of mortal exist- 
ence. Art had a large share in the changes in Greek religion 
because the image gradually modified man’s ideas of heaven. 

However thoroughly art in Greece may have been per- 
meated by religion, it was never placed in shackles by it, as it 
was in Egypt and the East, where dogma not only provided 
the occasion for the creation and determination of subjects 
but also oriented zesthetic conceptions, immutably fixed forms, 
and authorized or forbade technical processes. Was this 
because Greece never had a theocracy or an all-powerful 
priestly caste intervening in political affairs and jealous of 
their prerogatives, and because the service of the gods was 
one with the service of the free city, which the citizens them- 
selves assumed? But it was also because the rationalistic 
spirit of the Greeks was never swamped by mysticism, and 
because, on the contrary, it gradually freed itself from super- 
natural tutelage. From the 6th century onwards reason 
asserted itself to the detriment of belief, and the spirit of free 
criticism penetrated science and literature; it was then that 
history was born, which more and more sought truth in 
psychology and gave up seeking it in supernatural intervention. 
So, too, the Greek artist came to conceive of art as a work of 
reason. Fascinated by truth and reality he liberated himself 
from narrow and tyrannical dogma and established his inde- 
pendence as a creator. Conservatism and routine had small 
effect in Greece. The panathenaic' amphore kept up till 
the 3rd century the archaic image of the goddess, such as she 
had been conceived by the artists of Pisistratus’ day, and the 


1 Braughitsch, Die Panathenaische Preisamphoren ; CXLIV, p. 128 
ff.; XCII, p. 70 ff. ‘ 


ART AND RELIGION 61 


black-figure process, but these are as much industrial as 
religious products which were regulated, too, by economic 
laws. The true artist in Greece never considered himself 
obliged to give to his divinities an immutable appearance; 
he sought to modify them by incessant progress; in him the 
eesthetic sentiment was stronger than the necessities of dogma, 
and the character of the divine types depended less on ritual 
tradition than on the artistic exigencies of the period; this 
becomes obvious if we study the transformations of the 
Athena of Lindus' or of the goddess of Sardes.? Pericles’ 
struggle against the religious routine opposed to his projects 
for the transformation of the Acropolis is surely characteristic, 
and his triumph was surely the triumph of art itself, because 
it is to him that we owe the Attic floraison of the second half 
_ of the 6th century and the masterpieces of Phidias. 


1 Blinkenberg, ‘‘ L’image d’Athéna Lindia,’’ Kgl. Danske Videns- 
kabernes Selskab. Hist. fil. Meddekebser, 1917. 
2 Radet, REG, 1904, p. 318; 1925, p. 206; Cybébé, 1909, p. 104 


CHAPTER IV 
ART AND THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION? 


GREEK cities in certain respects were all alike whether large 
or small, powerful or weak, oligarchic or democratic, isolated 
or linked together in a federation, Peloponnesian league or 
Athenian empire. Being small they cannot be compared with 
the great empires of Egypt and the East; free, their destinies 
were confided to a group of citizens or to the whole people, 
and each individual had an interest in the life of the State; 
they did not have to submit against their will to a despot who 
ruled them according to his own will, and even in the times 
of the Macedonian monarchies they preserved a semblance 
of political independence unknown to the cities of the Orient. 
In a Greek city there was no one man in whom all power was 
concentrated. Even the authority of the kings of Sparta, 
the last survivors of the old monarchical principle, was more 
nominal than real, and was under the surveillance of the 
ephors of the senate. Elsewhere it was either an oligarchy 
in which the members mutually respected one another, or 
else, as at Athens and in certain subject and allied towns, 
a democracy in which the people was sovereign and fearful 
always lest any one person should raise himself above the rest. 
The tyrants, imitators of the Lydian Gyges —whose beneficent 
influence on art, however, cannot be gainsaid, as witness the 
Athens of the Pisistratide-—disappeared with the expulsion 
of Hippias in 510. : 

From this political conception flow those characteristic 
features which set up the contrast between the art of Hellenic 
Greece and of the East and even of Augean Greece. 

Under a monarchy the artist had to do the will of princes 
and great folk; he recounted their exploits and flattered their 
vanity, and the official art of the court, usually false and cold, 
imposed its necessities upon him. He also placed himself 
at the service of private persons. But he was unable to 


1 CLXXXIX-XC. 
62 


ART AND POLITICAL CONSTITUTION 68 


interest himself sincerely in the national life because neither 
he nor the citizens to whom he appealed took any active part 
in it. When the monarchies of Alexander and his successors 
put an end to independent Greece, one sees the birth of an 
official art which has broken the link between itself and the 
aspirations of the community. But, up till then, Greek art 
is the faithful reflection of national life, and thanks to its 
glorious past it preserves this character, though in attenuated 
form, up to the very end; it was never to become enslaved to 
the monotonous and servile glorification of the monarchy 
and its entourage which is to be seen in Egypt, Chaldea, 
Assyria and Persia. 

It expresses the collective soul of the city, its pride and 
its aspirations. Pericles justifies to the Athenian people the 
_ works of embellishment which some considered exaggerated: 
*“ Very well! it shall be at my expense and no longer at yours; 
but I alone shall put my name to the dedication of these works 
about which you complain.’ At these words the people, 
either because it admired his magnanimity or because, stirred 
to emulation, it would not relinquish to him the glory of these 
fine works, began to cry out more vehemently than ever, 
and this time to tell him to take from the treasury all that 
was needed to finance the works, and to spare nothing.’ The 
Athenians would not allow a single man to reap the glory of 
having set up on the Acropolis those masterpieces of archi- 
tecture and sculpture which illustrate its religion and its 
patriotism. If they reproached Phidias for the impiety, as 
the legend has it, of having sculped his portrait and that of 
Pericles on the buckler of the goddess Parthenos, it was 
because Athena personified the city which she had led to 
victory and which she protects always, and because this 
sculptural homage was paid to her by all and because the 
divine protection should be extended to all. Had not the 
artist, by thus linking their individual likenesses with that of 
the goddess, attempted to turn to his own and his master’s 
profit not merely future fame but especially the divine 
blessing ?? | 

** Processions and offerings were simply an occasion for 

1 Plutarch, Pericles. 


2 Deonna, ‘‘ Le portrait de Phidias sur le bouclier de l’Athéna 
Parthénos,”’ REG, 1920, p. 291. 


64 ART IN GREECE 


the people to glorify its own memory and to admire itself in 
the beauty of its young men and its elders, to display in the 
sunshine those strong, agile and disciplined bodies so capable 
of defending their country.’’* The frieze of the Panathenzea is 
the evocation of the entire city represented by its magistrates, 
priests, young men and maidens, its horsemen, ambassadors 
and metics. ‘‘ How proud must the Athenian people have 
been to look upon this noble and splendid likeness of itself 
which presented to its gaze a sort of ideal mirror, and to have 
there been able legitimately to recognize itself such as it 
had been and such as it would wish to be at the greatest 
moments of its national existence !’’? 

Oriental monarchies with despotic powers and _ vast 
territories had a taste for the grandiose and the colossal. 
Their temples and palaces covered wide surfaces with their 
complicated plan and numerous halls. They are adorned 
with long sets of reliefs in which one may see the god, and the 
king, his earthly representative, in their ordinary occupations 
of waging war, hunting or indulging in pleasure. The same 
character is manifested by Augean Greece in which the Cretan 
palace exhibits a complexity so foreign to the Hellenic spirit 
that it gave rise to the legend of the Labyrinth, and in which 
the dwelling-places of the Achzean princes of Argolis resemble 
the fortified castles of the feudal middle ages; the frescoes 
on their walls likewise bear witness to the power of the king, 
and his servants bring him their offerings. 

In Greece everything is on a smaller scale, and the 
buildings cannot compete in size or magnificence with those 
of the East or of the Minoan world. The financial resources 
of the State are less, labour is more scarce since it has not 
at its disposal for such works the ever-increasing hordes of 
prisoners of war and slaves, and it cannot impress the forced 
labour of the citizen. Private individuals, too, are not so 
wealthy, and since, as in the independent cities, each one keeps 
an eye on his neighbour’s position for fear of tyranny, they 
cannot nor do they desire to make an insolent display of 
luxury which the State will at once curb. 

The Greek temple, the supreme creation of architecture, 
is a modest building; its grandeur lies in the harmony of its 


1 Boutmy, Philosophie de V architecture en Gréce. 
2 Lechat, CLXV, p. 107. 


ART AND POLITICAL CONSTITUTION 65 


proportions, the careful workmanship, and the beauty of its 
decoration. It is true that divine society, modelled on human 
society, is subject to a supreme lord, Zeus, but his authority 
is limited by that of the other gods who are jealous of his 
and of one another’s power, and favour this or that city, and set 
themselves up in opposition one to another, and there could 
be no question of giving one of them a grander home than the 
others. There are no colossal temples in the classical period 
in Greece proper: they only appear at a later date or on the 
confines of the Hellenic world where the Greek spirit is con- 
taminated by foreign ways; in Sicily (Agrigente, Selinonte), 
and in Asia Minor (Ephesus),’ their dimensions excite the 
wonder of the Ancients. The columns of the Olympeum, 
more than 17 metres in height, are still standing at the foot 
of the Acropolis near the Ilisos. A princely work begun by 
Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Syria, in 174 B.c., and finished 
in A.D. 129 under Hadrian, its dimensions surpass those 
hitherto known. But they also reveal how much the spirit 
has changed since the times when Pericles set up the Parthenon 
in honour of the city’s goddess, whose proud silhouette is to 
be seen from there, and did not consider that the majesty 
of the gods or the piety of the faithful was to be measured 
by the material grandeur of their sanctuaries. 

Statues larger than life-size are rare, and always represent 
gods, who are taller than mortal men—the 6th century 
Apollo of the Naxians at Delos and the two Kouroi from 
Cape Sunium, probably Dioscuri;* for instance, the 4th 
century colossal Zeus at Olympia, the work of the Aiginetan, 
Anaxagoras, which was dedicated by the warriors of Platza 
(479); the Zeus of Phidias (487-432) which was about 14 
metres high, and his Athena Parthenos (438), about 12 metres 
in height. The Zeus of Tarente and the Colossus of Rhodes 
are the largest Greek statues, the next largest beng Hadrian’s 
Zeus at Olympia. But no mortal was allowed to consecrate 
an effigy of himself that was larger than the life. 

It has been said that the colossal is Asiatic. And, as 
a fact, it is in Asia Minor, when the Oriental spirit takes 
the offensive in Hellenistic times, that the size of such 
works increases. Terra cotta statuettes are no bigger than 
88 centimetres at Tanagra; compared with those in Greece 

1 CCX. 2 LXVIII, pp. 134, 191. 
+) 


66 ART IN GREECE 


proper the figurines of Asia Minor, especially those made at 
Smyrna, are often young statues in size, some of which reach 
90 centimetres in height.’ The Hellenistic schools of sculpture 
(Pergamum, Rhodes) also have this taste for the colossal. 
None the less, we never find in Greece that excess in which 
the vague and indolent spirit of the Far East delights, as 
witness the reclining Buddha of Pegu in Burma (62 metres in 
length); or the Lungmen Buddha set up against a rocky 
precipice on the flanks of the mountain, which is so vast in 
size that a tree which has taken root on its head merely looks 
like one of the curls of its hair. These are works as overgrown 
in size as the Oriental empires themselves which, at certain 
moments, embraced vast regions, but collapsed as quickly 
as they were formed. Nor has Greece anything resembling the 
Egyptian Colossi of the times of the Pharaohs. And, indeed, 
it was to glorify a king whose ephemeral power at one moment 
united Greece with Asia that an artist suggested to Alexander 
that Mount Athos should be hewn into a likeness of himself. 
The same thing holds good for funerary art. After the 
Dorian invasion the great vaulted tombs of the Af‘gean chiefs 
were no longer erected. In the Greek city, where there was 
more equality, such a vast and luxurious tomb would have 
shocked the dead man’s equals no less than his inferiors in 
station, suspicious as they were of the dead every whit as 
much as they were of the living. Then, too, as early as in the 
Iliad, Achilles suggests to his companions that they shall 
not raise too great a tomb over him, but one that is simply 
suitable. Legislation imposed restrictions of this kind more 
than once. Solon forbade too much pomp and ceremony 
at funerals: there were to be no lamentations in which the 
glories of one’s ancestors were vaunted, no sacrifice of a whole 
bullock, no huge procession, nor were three garments to be 
provided for the corpse. Later, in the time of Demetrius of 
Phalerum (317-307), it was forbidden to have a tomb whose 
erection required more than three days’ work by ten labourers. 
At Nisyrus it was forbidden to erect any monument what- 
soever over the dead, an interdict too absolute for it to be 
possible to obey it. Hence the Greek tomb and its decoration 
could not but be very simple, and this character is general 
whatever the kind of tomb.* The largest of them grouped 
1 LXVI-VI. 2 LXXXIV, vol. vii, pp. 58, 62; LXIII, p. 96. 


ART AND POLITICAL CONSTITUTION 67 


together in death a number of citizens, such as the tumulus 
of the Vourva and Velanidezza families (6th century), and 
the soros of the Marathon warriors (490);' yet even these 
did not equal in size the Mycenzean vaulted tombs, built for 
one occupant, nor did the earthen mound ever contain great 
constructions of masonry. 

It is again Asiatic Greece that affords examples of pelted 
monuments of considerable size and luxurious decoration— 
in the small states of the Hellenized dynasts. In Lycia, the 
heréon of Trysa develops, in a vast enclosure, its sculptured 
friezes to a total length of about 108 metres (end of the 8rd 
century);? and at the end of the 5th, or beginning of the 
6th century, Xanthus erects the monument known as that 
of the Nereids in honour of another Lycian chieftain.’ In the 
_middle of the 4th century, Mausolus (377-358), the powerful 
prince of Caria, got a “‘ huge tomb of a splendour unsurpassed 
by any the dead had ever known” (Lucian).4 These are 
Greek works, it is true, but they were adapted to Asiatic 
ideas, and it was Oriental luxury which ordered them. 

Whereas the East sought pomp and circumstance, rich 
embroideries and redundant ornament which betokened 
power and wealth, Greek genius, whenever it was manifested 
in its purity and freed from outside influence, rejected this 
luxury and superabundance and preferred simplicity. The 
archaic in Greece, up to the end of the 6th century, learning 
from the East and from Egypt and influenced by their inter- 
mediary Ionia, did yield a little to this foreign tendency. 
The vase painter and the sculptor of Korai’ of the 6th century 
liked garments covered with embroidery, painstaking arrange- 
ments of minute detail, bracelets, ear-rings and all the luxury 
of human ornament; they accumulated designs on all their 
vases® as if they loathed to leave an empty space, even filling 
up their background with superfluous detail. But from 
500 onwards, after the rupture with the East and the national 
reaction that came alike in politics and art, and right up to 
the time of the Hellenistic monarchies which renewed this 
severed link and brought about an active return of Orientalism, 

1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 68; LXIII, p. 82. 

2 LXII, ops ps p. 201. 3 Ibid., p. 215. 

4 Ibid., 


5 xX VII-X : : LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 574. 
6 CXLIV, vol. ix. 


68 ART IN GREECE 


Hellenic simplicity triumphs: the severe Dorian peplos 
replaces the more elegant Ionian costume, and all superfluous 
ornament is rejected, while technique despises minutiz.+ 

On the one hand force, overweening numbers, the colossal, 
exaggeration, and luxury. On the other, proportion, sim- 
plicity, sobriety, These Hellenic qualities may be instine- 
tive, because the monuments which immediately follow the 
Dorian invasion (the geometric period and the Attic Dipylon 
vases)” already testify to a spirit quite different from the 
Aigean; they may have been favoured by the land and its 
natural features, where all is small and nothing exaggerates 
or blocks the view and crushes thought; they were favoured 
by the preponderance of the anthropomorphic conception 
which brings everything down to the human scale. And 
they were likewise most certainly favoured by the social 
environment and the political constitution of the city. 

It was of great benefit to the Greek artist to have reacted 
against the Oriental spirit. He saw beauty, not in material 
grandeur or riches but in proportion and simplicity. Greek 
artists did not care for rare and glittering materials such as 
gold, silver, and precious stones, or for carving Colossi, 
erecting huge buildings and covering images with sumptuous 
ornamentation, but sought, rather, to render the harmony of 
pose, of line, proportions and rhythm in the simple materials 
within their immediate reach; they demanded beauty from 
their own esthetic capacity, not from outside and too facile 
means. And this is precisely why they have compelled 
universal admiration. 


1 LXXVIII, p. 353. 
2 CXLIV, vol. vii, p. 154; CXLV, vol. i, p. 212. 


CHAPTER V 
ART AND HISTORICAL EVENTS 


ART, the handmaiden of the city, commemorated the important 
events of its life—warlike or peaceful enterprises, joyful or 
sorrowful happenings, national festivals, and all that was of 
particular interest to the citizen. Whether victory, treaty or 
national calamity such as the plague, each formed the pretext 
for a work of art which was at one and the same time an 
historical document and an act of gratitude or expiation to 
the gods. History, like religion, is reflected in the mirror of 
art, and the visitor to such great sanctuaries as Olympia, 
Delphi, Delos, Dodona,' and the Acropolis of Athens, where 
offerings were accumulated in such profusion, could read it 
step by step as in a book whose pages were of stone or metal, 
and thus learn the story of their past. 

We modern folk, for whom art is divorced from the 
national life and artificially participates therein on rare 
occasions only, too often neglect, when dealing with the past, 
to note the social fact which gave the artist the opportunity to 
create his work and which gives to it its particular aspect. 
For us a sculpture or a picture is no longer anything but the 
expression of individual phantasy, of the emotion felt by the 
artist and communicated by him to the beholder. Such 
art as illustrates national life is cold, official and didactic 
rather than zesthetic; it does not move us because it corre- 
sponds to no sincere emotion in the soul of its creator. How 
poor in inspiration are the works of art engendered by the 
war of 1914-18—an event that yet was tremendous in itself 
and in its consequences! Look at the contrast in the case 
of the Persian wars (490-449)—as decisive for the continuance 
of an independent Greece as was the recent war for the con- 
tinued existence of a Europe seeking to escape the overlordship 
of an individual—and how those wars exalted the imagination 
of the artist and inspired him to produce his masterpieces ! 


1 Carapanos, Dodone et ses ruines, 1878. 
69 


70 ART IN GREECE 


This was because art, in Greece, was an integral part of 
national life; being utilitarian, it had to express this national 
life; the artist himself was a citizen who contributed by his 
works to the glory of his country. 

Fifth-century Greek art would be incomprehensible if we 
did not link it up with the Persian wars and with the Pelo- 
ponnesian War (431-404), in which the entire history of this 
period is summed up. Hardly had they been victorious at 
Marathon (490) before the Athenians raised their Treasury? 
within the Delphic precincts (Pl. II) with the tithe of their 
spoil (between 490-480). The Dorian Heracles and the Attic 
Theseus engage in their exploits on the metopes, and it is the 
Athenians in their struggle against the Persians who are 
represented in this mythic guise. Did not the Greek army 
during the battle occupy a defensive position near a sanctuary 
sacred to Heracles, and did not Theseus take part in person 
in the fighting ? At Delphi we find another Marathon ex- 
voto—the bronze group dedicated by the Athenians between 
465-460, doubtless as a product of the spoil from the Eury- 
medon; there we see the triumphant Miltiades? surrounded 
by Apollo, Athena, and various heroes of myth. The project 
of the first Parthenon was perhaps the fruit of the advent of 
the democracy which had just overthrown the tyrant (con- 
stitution of Clisthenes, about 508), and the second Parthenon, 
between 490 and 480,° was again due to the victory at 
Marathon. On the coinage, Athena, victorious, now encircles 
her helmet with a wreath of laurel. At the Athens Peekile, 
Micon paints the varying fortunes of the battle. It is in 
three sections and shows the entry into the battle-line of the 
Plateans, and the general mélée; the flight of the Persians 
in the marshes and their pursuit, and the Athenians trying to 
prevent them from boarding their vessels. Salamis (480) 
led to the construction of the temple of Apheea at Aigina* 
in memory of the glorious part the Aiginetan fleet had played, 
and the ornamentation of the pediments, where the Greeks 
of myth fight against the Trojans under the benevolent 
regard of Athena. Did not Herodotus say that the taking 
of Troy was what led up to the Persian wars and the origin 

1 Fouilles de Delphes, iv; Bourguet, = ruines de Delphes, p. 96. 

3 XXXIX. 


2 Bourguet, p. 40. 
* Furtwaengler, Aegina, 1906. 


PLATE II 


DELPHI. TREASURY OF THE ATHENIANS 
First Quarter of the 5th Century 


[ face p.70 


—— 


t 
t 


ART AND HISTORICAL EVENTS 71 


of the age-long hatred of these two nations one for the other ? 
The heroes, Aiax and Telamon, who appear on the pedi- 
ments, fought at Salamis, invoked by the Greeks, and a ship 
which they sent to AuSgina took back the spirits of AZacus and 
the Aacide. 

After Platza (479) Delphi received the triple bronze 
serpent;* an act of gratitude to Apollo, this was likewise a 
testimony to the union effected against the common enemy, 
and it was consecrated by all the allies whose name it bears. 

While the Greeks were repulsing the Persians in the East, 
they were also vanquishing the barbarians in the West, in 
Magna Grecia and Sicily, and this provided fresh occasions 
for artistic creation—the ex-voto of the Tarentines at Delphi, 
commemorating their victory over the Messapians and the 
_ Peucetians, which was the work of Ageladas; the golden 

tripod offered by Gelon of Syracuse and his brothers Thrasy- 
bulus and Polyzalus, in memory of the victory of Himera 
over the Carthaginians (480),’and many others besides. 

Peace, however, was concluded between Athens and 
Persia (449), as is witnessed by the Lemnian Athena of 
Phidias offered about 450 by the Athenian colonists of 
Lemnos. Bareheaded, without her buckler, helmet in hand, 
and her now idle spear in her left hand, the goddess personifies 
the city which can now rest from its rude and warlike labours — 
and devote itself to the works of peace. But the Athena 
** Promachos,” set up about 448 between the Propylea and 
the Erectheum, is a reminder that it must be a vigilant 
peace: with her spear at rest, her buckler on her arm, she 
symbolizes the military power of Athens, constantly aug- 
mented by new victories, and ever ready for action. The 

‘aigrette of her helmet and the point of her lance glittering in 
the sunshine, and visible from afar, testify to the world at 
large that the city is capable of defending her liberties and 
will defend them dearly. 

So, too, must we understand Pericles’ Acropolis.’ It is 
alike the sanctuary of the local gods and the mirror of the 
great events of Attic history. The Persian wars which 
destroyed the temples, also, when victory was achieved, 
enabled them to be rebuilt with greater beauty than ever 


1 Bourguet, p. 160. 2 Bourguet, pp. 54, 155, 172. 
3 CLXV-VI. 


72 ART IN GREECE 


thanks to the wealth this victory brought. On the pediments 
of the Parthenon’ Athena springs, full-armed, from the head 
of Zeus, and disputes the possession of Attica with Poseidon: 
this is the legendary birth of the city and its progressive 
domination over the small Attic states, realized by the synot- 
kismos of Theseus. On the metopes the Lapiths fight against 
the Centaurs, the Greeks against the Amazons and Trojans, 
the gods against the giants: here are all these Athenians who, 
in the course of their long story, have battled with the enemy 
to preserve their independence and who now finally consecrate 
it.2 On the frieze of the cella the Athenian people, in a long 
procession symbolizing them as a whole, come to give thanks 
to the gods who have protected them, and to parade their own 
triumph. For at the time of the consecration of the Par- 
thenon in 488, Athens, liberated from all her foes, at the head 
of a vast maritime empire, wealthy, and attracting within her 
gates from all quarters men who were illustrious in the arts 
and sciences, had reached the summit of her power. 

¥These were visions of glory and pride, but they were 
likewise visions full of sadness. The Nike of Pseonius of 
Mende, set up at Olympia on its high triangular pedestal,° 
descends from heaven to bring victory. We no longer see 
in her anything but an admirable piece of sculpture in which 
the two problems of movement and of transparent drapery 
in motion, already approached as far back as the 6th century, 
particularly by the Ionians, find their happiest solution. 
But what bitterness the Spartans must have felt to see her in 
Attica—if it is true that she recalls the success achieved by 
the Messenians, their inveterate enemies and the allies of 
the Athenians, in the affair of Sphacteria (425)! This was 
a day of dishonour for Sparta, who, for the first time, saw 
her warriors failing to die to the last man, and shamefully 
surrendering instead. ‘‘ Of all the events of this war, this 
for the Hellenes had been the most unexpected. Because 

1 XXXIX, XLIV, CLXVI. 

2 Certain scholars—wrongly, in my own opinion—do not see in 
the oft-repeated Centauromachy, Amazonomachy, etc., any national 
symbol or profound meaning; the artist likes to depict them simply 
from an esthetic point of view because they permit of his endlessly 
varying his poses, groups and composition. Tarbell, ‘*‘ Centauromachy 
and Amazonomachy in Greek Art; the Reasons for their Popularity,” 


Amer. Journ. of Arch., 1920, xxiv, p. 226. 
3 Olympia; LXII, vol. i, p. 457. 


ART AND HISTORICAL EVENTS 73 


it had been. believed that neither hunger nor any other 
extremity could ever have induced the Lacedemonians to 
lay down their arms—that they would die rather than 
surrender, and fight on to the bitter end; it was impossible 
to believe that those who had laid down their arms were the 
same as those who were dead.”’! This incident heralds, 
indeed, the moral decadence of Sparta, and the sad story of 
the 4th century. This beautiful Nike is the incarnation not 
so much of a passing victory as of the horrors of that civil 
war of the Peloponnese which ruined Greece and led up to 
her coming loss of independence.” 

And here, Sparta’s wounded pride is avenged. Facing the 
Marathon ex-voto at Delphi was a substantial base supporting 
thirty-seven bronze statues that represented the gods who 
inspired success, Lysander crowned with victory, and the 
leaders who had commanded their naval squadrons. This 
was the ex-voto of Aigospotami (405).° And what a contrast 
between these two neighbouring monuments, one of which 
gloriously inaugurates the 5th century whilst the other sadly 
closes it! One celebrates the victory of Athens over Persia 
and her patriotic union with the Hellenes who are to confront 
the invader, foretells her high political future, the making 
of her empire and her military, commercial, spiritual and 
artistic power in the second half of the 5th century; the other 
recalls Athens’ defeat, a city given over to the enemy, and the 
abandonment of her territories, the end of her political 
glory, and the odious fratricidal struggles between the Greeks. 
For those Athenians who passed along the Sacred Way it 
must have aroused painful memories of the past. 

These beautiful works of art, buildings and sculpture, 
are thus so many historical documents, so many witnesses to 
the past, ranged along the road to the city. Confronted with 
them we should not merely admire their beauty; however 
marvellous that may be; we should also see in them that 
which, in this constant association of the beautiful and the 
utilitarian, the Greeks saw in them—historic truth. The 
goddess, habited in the severe Dorian peplos, sceptre in 


1 Thucydides, iv, 40. 

2 Deonna, L’éternel présent. Guerre du Péloponnése (431-434) 
et guerre mondiale (1914-1918), 19238. 

$ Bourguet, Les ruines de Delphes, 1914, p. 41. 


74 ART IN GREECE 


her right hand, carries on her left arm the little child, Plutus 
(Munich group). He puts out his hand to caress the face of 
Kirene, who bends on him a look of maternal tenderness. 
It is a work full of charm which heralds the grace of Praxiteles 
and which marks an important date in artistic evolution by 
evincing a new feeling for humanity, and a more realistic 
conception of the form, too long neglected, of a child. Yet 
how should we understand this solicitude of the goddess for 
the child and his own mute gesture and the horn of plenty 
which he holds, unless we interpret literally the names of the 
persons in the scene, and unless we know that Peace brings 
Wealth and that she owes her protection to this weak and 
naked little child? Symbolic of peace, this group yet reminds 
us of the innumerable ills of war. Chabrias has won the 
victory of Naxos (375), the Athenian ships have beaten the 
Peloponnesian squadrons of Nicolochus, and the peace of 
371 has for the time being put an end to the struggles which 
resulted from the Peloponnesian war. Annual sacrifices had 
been instituted in honour of Eirene; Peace and the Cephiso- 
dotus group were consecrated to her. In Praxiteles’ group, 
an analogous conception, Hermes carries the infant Dionysus 
on his arm (about 340); he has to secure his escape from the 
jealousy of Hera and take him to the nymphs who are to bring 
him up in secret; he has stopped by the way near a tree, on 
which he has hung his chlamys, and he is amusing the child 
with a bunch of grapes. Is this simply a mythological 
scene ? No, it is to commemorate an alliance between Elis 
and Arcadia, symbolized by these gods.” 

Political events likewise determine the relative importance 
of the different art centres and the amount of influence they 
exercise. They make possible that marvellous efflorescence 
of Attic art in the second half of the 5th century. The 
Persian wars had been disastrous for Athens which had 
sustained the full shock of the invasion. On the morrow of — 
Salamis the Athenians returned to a town where everything 
was in ruins, both public buildings and private houses; the 
countryside had been systematically devastated and there 
was wreckage on every side. For a long while they had to 
confine themselves to what was most urgent, and that was 
not works of art but utilitarian building, such as ramparts 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 180. 2 Ibid., p. 291. 


ART AND HISTORICAL EVENTS 75 


to shelter them from any fresh attempts, and an enlarged 
fleet which should teach Persia to respect them, protect the 
city against a maritime raid such as that of Marathon, and 
police the allied seas. Nevertheless the disaster proved 
fruitful, for Athens rose again stronger than ever. She 
becomes the head of a great maritime empire and has at her 
disposal financial resources such as she had never known in 
the old days—tribute paid to her by allies who very soon 
become her subjects. Once Persia had been finally driven 
back and peace concluded, she could begin to think of adorning 
and beautifying herself. The Barbarians had done the best 
thing possible in ruining everything so completely and wiping 
the slate clean, for now architects, painters and sculptors had 
a clear field. Had this not been so, Pericles’ contemporaries 
_ would have still seen on the Acropolis the old building of the 
6th century, the Hekatompedon of the Pisistratide with its 
marble fagade and on its pediments the struggle between 
gods and giants. The Parthenon would not have been the 
masterpiece of Doric architecture and Phidian sculpture that 
it was, but the primitive project (of about 506) or the second 
Parthenon (after 489) whose unfinished drums are incor- 
porated into the north wall of the Acropolis, would have been 
realized sooner;” Pericles would never have conceived his plan 
for the embellishment of the Acropolis, and that religious 
conservatism would have triumphed utterly which forced 
Mnesicles to truncate the south wing of the Propylea and 
determined the bizarre orientation of the temple of Athena 
Nike, and which doubtless stood in the way of the symmetric 
plan of the Erectheum, that the old sanctuaries should be 
respected. It may thus be said with some justice that Athens 
was fortunate in being ruined in 480; left intact, she could but 
have added a few new buildings to those older ones that were 
there already .® 

And while Athens waited for the propitious moment to 
begin her reconstruction, art was making progress. During 
the first half of the 5th century it had by no means arrived 
at casting off old archaic conventions, and its style was some- 
what stern and hard. Towards 450 it had reached technical 
maturity and it was precisely at this moment that Athens 


~ 1 LXXVIII, p. 300; LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 552. 
2 XXXIX. 8 LXXVIII, p. 424. 


76 ART IN GREECE 


found herself able to put her artistic projects into realization. 
If these projects are beautiful and harmonious in their 
execution, is it not because the artists had not merely an 
occasion for creation but had at their disposal from this time 
forth a perfect technique? Could the genius of a Phidias, 
an Ictinus, or a Mnesicles, or of the many artists grouped 
around these great masters, have manifested itself so clearly 
and unmistakably, or could it have carried to execution 
works which their successors looked upon as everlasting 
models, had these fortunate circumstances not existed ? 

It is to the Persian wars, again, that Athens owes her 
artistic preponderance in the second half of the 5th century; 
the Barbarians enabled the spread of Attic art to come about. 
Still of little importance in the 6th century, despite the 
brilliant dominance of Pisistratus, Athens, by the middle of 
the 5th century, had become the first city in Greece, taking 
higher rank even than Sparta. Her political prosperity was 
the determining factor of her soaring flight in the spheres of 
commerce, industry, science, literature and art during that 
brief period which has been called ‘‘ the century of Pericles.” 
Attic art was mistress of Greece and her dominion was felt 
everywhere, in the Peloponnese (the temple of Phigalia, built 
by Ictinus about 420), in Asia Minor in the courts of the 
little kings of Lycia and Caria, and wherever Hellenic culture 
had penetrated. The Peloponnesian schools could claim no 
such success, and the influence of the school of Argos, so 
flourishing under Polyclitus, did not reach beyond the borders 
of Greece proper.* ‘ 

But was it not the same in the 7th and 6th centuries? 
Was not the spread of Ionian art beyond its own geographical 
boundaries the result of the economic prosperity of Ionia, 
whose political downfall led to the extinction of her brilliant 
influence on continental Greece ? “ 

More than anywhere else the prosperity of art in Greece is 
intrinsically bound up with the country’s political vicissitudes 
just because that art is the expression of the city’s life. And 
this is a fact patent throughout her history. In the Hel- 
lenistic period the great centres of artistic activity are no 
longer in Greece even, but in Asia Minor (Pergamum), in~ 
Egypt (Alexandria), and in Syria (Antioch), because inde- 

1 CLXVII. 


ART AND HISTORICAL EVENTS 77 


pendent Greece no longer exists and because political life has 
shifted eastwards along with the monarchies of Alexander and 
the diadochoi. Later still, the creative sap has dried up 
altogether in Greece, and the artist lives on his glorious past 
because Greece has also lost the outward semblance of liberty 
and become the docile subject of Rome. 

The very choice of themes, denoting a modification of the 
Greek spirit, sometimes depends on political circumstances. 
Athens the glorious exalts the god-given victory which 
enables her to produce so many works of art—witness the 
Athena Parthenos bearing the Nike on her hand, or the 
balustrade in which the Nikes form the train of the goddess. 
At the beginning of the 4th century circumstances have 
altered. Athens, vanquished in 404, has seen her empire 
crumble. Her citizens, full of bitterness, are war-weary; their 
own wealth and that of the state is exhausted, and all long 
for tranquillity. Nevertheless, by taking advantage of the 
dissensions between Thebes and Sparta, an attempt is made 
to regain the lost hegemony, and the peace of 371 enables 
the second shortlived Athenian empire (civil war of 371-356) 
to come into being.” In order to celebrate it, the group of 
statuary of Cephisodotus is ordered. But the artist no longer 
chooses, as his predecessors did, the warlike Nike or Athena 
the warrior: the theme is a pacific one foretelling that calm 
and wealth desired by all. 

The esthetic ideal and its vicissitudes are in some measure 
tributory to historic events. In the 7th to the 6th centuries, 
Ionia, thanks to her material prosperity, has the main part 
to play in art.’ It is in this Greek territory in Asia that the 
techniques of bronze and marble are built up and developed 
and that the artist sets himself to solve the problem of drapery. 
Greece in Europe, particularly Athens of about 560, accepts 
this beneficent Ionian influence.* But round about 500 art 
sounds a different note.* Freeing itself from the minutiz 
and elegance sought after in Ionia, it becomes enamoured 
of simplicity and sobriety, clearly to be perceived in Athens 
in the Kore of Euthydicus and the head of the Blond Ephebus, 
which are earlier than 480.4 The long, trailing dress covered 


1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 252; LXXVIII, p. 168; CXLV, vol. ii, p. 486. 
2 LXXVIII, pp. 188, 335. 8 Ibid., p. 353. 
4 LXXVIII, pp. 353, 362. 


78 ART IN GREECE 


with rich ornamentation which had been borrowed from the 
Ionians and which betrays the Asiatic love of luxury rather 
than the measured taste of Greece, no longer meets with the 
favour it once enjoyed; the ancient national garment, the 
so-called Dorian peplos with its simple regular folds is pre- 
ferred; the manner of hairdressing in which the hair fell in 
sheets down the back, with evenly regulated curls detached 
from it and hanging over the shoulders, with volutes, cork- 
screws and complications without number, is replaced by 
hair worn short or semi-short, treated with more and more 
simplicity. This new tendency is of continental origin and 
is that of Peloponnesian art of other days inherited in direct 
line from the old Dorian spirit which was already evident in 
the 6th century in the Kouroi of Polymedes of Argos and the 
metopes at Selinus.. Why this change? Was it because 
the artists, saturated with Ionianism and having extracted 
from it all that they could use with profit, turned away from 
it naturally ? Or was it due to the necessities of artistic 
evolution? Certain scholars, indeed, decline to place this 
fact in relation with historical circumstances. And yet was 
there not at this very moment a change in political orienta- 
tion? The East threatens. Darius dreams of conquering 
Europe, and makes a beginning with his plans in Thrace, 
thus establishing himself at the very doors of Greece. Inde- 
pendent Lydia (546) and Ionia, the natural intermediaries 
between European Greece and Asia, are no more, and from 
510 their influence is a thing of the past. Ionia, rebelling, 
is crushed at the battle of Lade (495), and Miletus succumbs 
(494). The misfortunes of their brothers in Asia are painfully 
felt by the western Hellenes, and Phrynicus is condemned 
to punishment for having revived this sad memory in his 
drama, The Taking of Miletus. Then come the unfortunate 
expedition of Mardonius to Mount Athos, the demand for 
homage by sea and land (491), and, finally, open hostilities 
—the landing of the Persians at Marathon (490) and the heroic 
struggles at Thermopyle, Salamis (480), and Platza (479). 
Are we to believe that, in Greece, where art is so intimately 
bound up with the life of the city, these events left the artist 
indifferent or that they merely provided him with the occasion 
to create without having any repercussion on his zsthetic 
1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 436. 


ART AND HISTORICAL EVENTS 79 


feeling itself, and without giving it a different orientation, 
turning it away frm the East towards Europe and that 
Dorian land where dwelt great artists such as Callon and 
Onatas of ANgina, Gorgias of Laconia, and Ageladas of Argos ? 
Was it not from those lands that the armies of the Pelopon- 
nesian confederates were to come and join the Attic forces in 
a common effort to repulse the alien? Was there not in art, 
as in politics, a new consciousness of national feeling and of 
purely Hellenic qualities which the Dorians of the Pelopon- 
nese represented in the highest degree? The Persian wars 
did not only enrich the repertory of artistic themes, furnish 
the occasion for splendid monuments and affirm the artistic 
dominance of Athens, but likewise confirmed this new direction 
taken by art from the beginning of the 5th century. Perhaps, 
__had this rupture never taken place, orientalism and Ionianism 
might have continued to exercise their influence on continental 
Greece, to the detriment of that robust and healthy strength, 
that well-proportioned simplicity, and that grace without 
prettiness, which were to become the dominant features of 
the great classical period. The question has often been 
envisaged as to what might have happened if tyranny had 
succeeded in maintaining itself in the Greek cities instead 
of being overthrown conclusively at the end of the 6th century 
when the Pisistratide were expelled (510); the supposition 
has been that these vain and ostentatious tyrants, imitating 
in a small way the kings of Lydia-and the monarchs of the 
Kast, would have prepared the way for a Persian victory, 
accepting it without resistance, and allowing Greece to be 
reduced to a Persian province. One may put an analogous 
question in regard to art and ask oneself whether art would 
not have evolved differently and persisted in its former 
tracks had relations been maintained with an ever-prosperous 
Ionia providing Greece with an open door to the Orient. 

At the close of the 5th century yet another change comes 
about. Still almost insensible in figured art it is clearly 
evident in other spheres. That noble and almost superhuman 
ideal which had inspired the artist on the morrow of the Greek 
victories has been shaken; greater interest is taken in reality. 
Euripides no longer sings, as Aischylus and Sophocles did, the 
divine force that directs the world, or the human will rising 
superior to its destiny; he describes the passions which stir 


80 ART IN GREECE 


the human heart, and he puts humble folk upon the stage such 
as mothers and children, and represents the variety of daily 
life. Music becomes more emotive, is a thing of finer shades. 
There is now a new note of realism and feeling in the Greek 
soul which finds its expression in pictorial and plastic art 
in the 4th century, a note that with Scopas and Praxiteles 
is emotional and sentimental and sways portraiture in the 
direction of individual realism. Is this a natural evolution 
leading art towards new resources, or is it the effect of political 
circumstance ? The evolution of Christian art presents an 
analogous rhythm determined by social events analogous 
to those in Greece.» What happened in Greece at the close 
of the 5th century ? The Peloponnesian war came to an end 
with the foundering of the Athenian power (404); this war 
put the Hellenic world to fire and sword, and ruined both 
the vanquished and the vanquishing states, demoralizing 
the Greeks, and weakening their hitherto confident faith in 
the traditional gods, and it turned them to seeking passion 
and mysticism; the war likewise upset the common life of 
the city whose misfortunes developed in them an egoistic 
individualism; it encouraged luxury and destroyed the ancient 
simplicity. The seeds of realism, emotionalism, voluptuous- 
ness and softness which had already manifested themselves 
in the art of the 4th century, to reach their culminating point 
in Hellenistic times, germinated in the political misfortunes 
of the close of the 5th century. 

It will be shown how, later still, the monarchic conception 
imposed by the Macedonians and their successors introduced 
into art quite other characters than those of the days of in- 
dependent Greece. 

To study the evolution of art in Greece is to study the 
history of Greece; the archeologist and the historian of art 
must of absolute necessity be historians as well. 


1 VI, vol. iii, p. 261 ff. 
2 Deonna, L’éternel présent, Guerre du Péloponnése et guerre mondiale, 
1923. 


CHAPTER VI 
ART AND SOCIAL RANK! 


ArT reflects the various ranks which made up Hellenic society. 
It has at its disposal for this nuances whose meaning fre- 
quently escapes modern folk, unaccustomed as they are to 
read works from which they ask nothing beyond esthetic 
emotion, but which spoke a social language which was clear 
as day to the ancients. 

This preoccupation with the characterization of the rank 
which the individual occupied in the city comes out clearly 
in funerary art. The painters of the geometric vases at the 
Athens Dipylon (9th to 8th centuries) commemorate the 
Athenian nobility of the Eupatrids in the execution of their 
duties as naukrariai, and in the pomp of their funeral cere- 
monies.” In the 6th century a statue of a horseman is 
erected on the tomb—the dead man as a member of the 
Athenian class of immeic; a small horseman carved on an 
Attic stele beneath the image of the dead recalls the same 
idea. Aristion is the hoplite wearing his heavy armour; 
Alxenor of Naxos sculps a landed proprietor with his dog 
and a locust in his hand.® Later, the frieze of the Pan- 
athenza groups together in its march-past various repre- 
sentatives of the Athenian people. 

What did this social hierarchy consist in? The Hellenic 
world comprehended first of all superhuman society with its 
gods, heroes and semi-heroes; then the dead whose passage 
into the beyond has made them heroes; finally, in the lowest 
rank of the scale, those mythical beings still somewhat animal 
and of the earth, the Satyrs, Sileni, Titans, and Antzus. 
The society of the living had at its head Greeks of good birth, 
the citizens who directed the affairs of the city as the Olym- 
- pians directed heavenly affairs. Below these were the smaller 
folk—the slaves; beyond the borders of Greece were the 

1 VII, p. 167. 2 LXXXIV, vol. vii, p. 160. 


8 For these monuments see LX XXIV, vol. viii, pp. 360, 663. 
81 6 


82 ART IN GREECE 


despised Barbarians who were readily assimilated to the 
lowest beings in the mythological society. 

The artist rendered these social differences by various 
means. Gods, heroes and the heroicized dead are often 
taller than mortals, a procedure common to the art of many 
peoples. On the frieze of Assos (6th century) Heracles 
towers over those who are aiding in the fight against Triton, 
and in the banquet scene the cupbearer, close to the reclining 
guests, is minute.t On the Chrysapha stele (6th century)’ 
the heroicized dead are receiving the homage of the living— 
minute doll-like figures. And statues of abnormal size always 
represent gods, not mortals. 

Noble and dignified attitudes are reserved for the gods, 
for the dead, and for the living of high birth. They are 
seated majestically on thrones, emblems of power, or they 
stand erect, facing the spectator. The long persistence of 
the rule of the frontal pose* may have been the result of a 
social convention, since the ancients attached the idea of 
dignity to this position. Gods and men, both, seemed 
proud to testify to their illustrious origin by their magnificent — 
bodies—a leg might be put forward or the arms might make 
some gesture; as a rule the action is not clearly specified, 
but is sufficient to render them recognizable. The wounded 
would not allow their bodies to fail them, and one might 
say that they anticipated those words of Vespasian: ‘“ An 
emperor should die on his feet.’”’? As witness Cresilas’ defiant 
warrior,* or the wounded Amazon of Polyclitus (Berlin),° 
bearing pain without betraying weakness and standing 
firmly, or at the most leaning on their spear or against a 
pillar. When they are laid low by their suffering, how 
dignified still is their surrender, such, for instance, as the 
Niobid of Rome® who, her back pierced by Apollo’s arrow, 
has fallen to her knees! A nobility of posture even in 
agony and death is proper to these superior beings. 

1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 256. 

2 Ibid., p. 489. 8 On this law see CLXXVI. 

4 Bavai bronze, at the St. Germain museum. Its authenticity, 
sometimes disputed, is now generally admitted. GBA, 1905; lastly, 
RA, 1918, i, p. 318; 1921, ii, p. 110; GBA, 1922, i, p. 116; REG, 1916, 
a pe vol. i, p. 508. 


6 REG, 1908; Sitte, ‘‘ Zur Niobide der Banca commerciale,” Eranos, 
1909 ; Ausonia, 1907; Revue ét anciennes, 1910, p. 325. 


ART AND SOCIAL RANK 83 


But those of lower order do not hesitate to take the most 
familiar attitudes in which the body carelessly lets itself 
go without restraint. They crouch on the ground with legs 
raised or stretched—this is the posture of shameless Satyrs 
and Sileni, of the young boy, no doubt a serving lad, on the 
pediment at Olympia (about 460), who, playing mechanically 
with his foot, watches the preparations for the race between 
Pelops and Ginomaus.' Or they lie down, not in dignified 
manner on a banqueting divan, but on the ground itself on 
their stomachs—the figures in the angles of the pediments 
’ at Olympia are more likely to be spectators of both sexes” 
of humble rank than river gods and nymphs. They readily 
cross their legs—an indication of ill manners. The ceramist 
Douris (Fig. 50) takes us into a school;? the masters who are 
instructing their pupils how to play the lyre and to recite 
are either seated or stand in simple and decent postures; 
but in one corner the person sitting on a folding stool with 
his legs crossed is the school-teacher, the slave who betrays 
by this breach of manners his lowly origin. On the reliefs 
of the Ludovisi throne’ the artist contrasts the severely 
draped matron with the flute player, a courtesan, naked, who 
crosses her legs. 

The discordant poses, too, which are frequent in vase- 
painting are felt to be suited to such beings—attitudes 
which break the rhythm of the body and fling the limbs about 
at random. Satyrs and Sileni gesticulate and contort their 
bodies.* What a contrast is here between these creatures 
and the intense action that athletes, such as Myron’s Disco- 
bolus,° are sometimes shown in, action which is calculated to 
bring the body’s harmony into full play! 

In Myron’ s group® Athena, calm, disdainfully throws 
away the pipes which deform her features; but, in front of 
her, Marsyas makes a large gesture of surprise (Fig. 1). In 
Aristophanes, the Just praises the young Athenians of former 
days, who were sedate and modest: ‘* When among the masters 
they sat and did not recline. In the paleestra they sat, their 
thighs tense and held close together so that nought indecent 


1 LXII, vol. i, p. 441. 2 CXLVI, p. 112, fig. 22. 
3 Antike Denkméler, i ii, Pl. 6-7; LXXIII, LPs 202; LXXIIL, p. 202. 
4 CXLVI, p. 87, figs. 14, 15. 5 LXII, vol. i, p. 472. 


6 CLXIX, p. 44; LXII, vol. i, p. 465. 


84. ART IN GREECE 


was visible to those in front of them.”” The Greeks were very 
sensitive to the beauty of calm poses, which revealed nobility 
of person and good upbringing. That which Plato said of 
music iS appropri- 
ate to their figured 
presentments: ‘It 
should seek attitudes 
and movements that 
are calm and which 
maintain harmonious 
>= relations between 
the different parts 
of the body, fleeing 
from disordered agi- 
tation and the imi- 
tation of deformed 
and ridiculous 
beings.” 

Superior beings alone had their form rendered in detail 
with that perfect musculature patiently fashioned by gym- 
nastic exercises. They were robust and strong with no super- 
fluous flesh on them. The Sileni might be fat even to obesity 
but a Greek had to cultivate his body and keep it supple and 
vigorous. The musculature of ~ 
inferior beings was also ruder ee 4 
and coarser, and the body of 
Marsyas, by Myron, differs in 
this way from that of the Disko- 
bolos, just as the form of the 
Hellenistic Gauls' differs from 
that of the Greeks. In Athens 
Solon’s law made gymnastics 
obligatory for young men of 
good family and forbade slaves 
to exercise in the paleestra. It 
was doubtless the same in other 
Greek cities, and this restriction was abolished only in the 
time of the last emperors. Jn the early days it was the sons 
of wealthy Athenians only who took up gymnastic exercises, 
hunting, horsemanship and philosophy. The ancient authors 

1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 520. 


— 
Fic. 1. Myron. ATHENA AND MARSYAS. 


- ee 


Fic. 2. SILENI, ON A VASE BY 
DourIs. 


‘enue 


ART AND SOCIAL RANK 85 


likewise tell us that a well-bred man could be distinguished 
at once from an artisan by his gait and the nobility of his 
bearing. 

The hair and beard of the superior being was always 
carefully combed; it always presents this neat and regular 
character, occasionally too symmetrical in the 5th, and which 
was rendered more picturesquely in the 4th century, whether 
it was dressed long, or semi-short or short. But Satyrs and 
Sileni are given wild and tousled beards and hair; frequently 
it stands on end. 

The straight ‘“‘ Hellenic profile” which imposed itself on 
Greek art from the beginning of the 5th century, and which 
is an idealization of nature, is not given indiscriminately to 


Fic. 3. HeERACLES FIGHTING ANTZUS, ON A VASE BY EUPHRONIUS. 


all: the artist will not allow the Sileni, the Centaurs or Antzeus 
to have it, whose stubby and turned-up noses are almost 
animal (Fig. 3). 

To be master of oneself, restrain the impulses and hide 
the stronger feelings, allowing nothing to show in the coun- 
tenance, was a social convenance to which all superior persons 
conformed. They had to be impassive, or at all events to be 
discreet in the display of emotion.’ In order to dissimulate 
it the “‘ archaic smile ” of the 6th century imposed its unchang- 
ing mask even on the wounded and dying; then the calm 
serenity of the 5th century gave to all an intentional indif- 
ference. Emotion is shown only in slight contractions of the 
facial muscles. ‘The Rome Niobid? falls, her head sinks back, 


1 On expression in Greek art see VII, and Girard in REG, 1894, 
pp. 1, 337; 1895, p. 88; Monuments grecs, ii, 1895-7, No. 28-5. 
2 See above, on p. 82. 


86 ART IN GREECE 


her eyes are upcast to heaven and she opens her lips to cry 
out, but pain does not convulse her features; even dying she 
preserves her dignity and reserve. The Lapiths who fight 
the Centaurs on the Olympia pediments or on the Parthenon 
metopes have almost calm expressions; a slight frown alone 
denotes their choler and the ardour of the fray. But persons 
belonging to the lower orders of society, divine or human, 
are not bound by this severe code of manners, nor do they 
blush to display all kinds of feelings. Fifth-century vase 
paintings, reliefs and statues show us this difference quite 
plainly. On the one hand countenances that are almost 
impassive; on the other features that already betoken passion. 
On a crater by Euphronius' Heracles is shown grappling with 
Anteus (Fig. 3). The hero’s countenance is calm, and 
only his tight lips and wide eye betray the anger which ani- 
mates him; his hair and beard are carefully combed; his 
profile is straight. The giant, on the contrary, with his 
bristling beard and drooping moustache, his thick brows and 
corrugated profile, has his mouth open to cry out in anguish; 
his teeth are bared with pain, and his eyes, showing the whites, 
betoken approaching death. The common folk are given 
more realistic and expressive faces. Men of the humbler 
sort are fighting, and one of them, with a gesture which the 
artist has copied from the life of the streets, catches hold of 
his adversary by the pudenda, and makes him howl with pain. 
Coming out from a too copious indulgence at a feast, they are 
depicted in the act of vomiting, their faces convulsed. If we 
look at the Centauromachy pediment at Olympia” we shall 
find there the expression of three grades of society. In the 
centre Apollo’s features are as impassive as his attitude, and 
allow none of the emotions of the fight to be seen in them. 
The Lapiths, of noble lineage, have to keep their dignity and 
control their furious passion, yet one may recognize it by 
little details—contracted brows and set lips, and, in truth, 
the brutal head of the youth bitten by a Centaur has nothing 
in common with that of Apollo. But it is in the faces of the 
Centaurs that the emotional reaches its maximum intensity. 
The monsters roar, biting their adversaries in their rage; 
gloating, they bear off women and youths, and their ugly 
countenances reflect their tumultuous feelings. This dualism 


1 CXXIX, p. 158, Fig. 105. 2 LXXII, vol. i, p. 446. 


ART AND SOCIAL RANK 87 


in expression is pursued throughout Greek art. Even when 
the emotional comes to be depicted in divinities who have 
become suffering, it will be shown more intensely in lower 
beings. On the Pergamum frieze' the expression of the giants 
is more intense than that of their adversaries not merely 
because they themselves are vanquished but because they 
are of inferior clay. 

In a general way, all that is beautiful is proper to the 
one sort and all that is ugly to the other. The features of 
noble Greeks were never to be hideous like those of the Satyrs, 
Pan and the Sileni, vulgar beings who get drunk and quarrel, 
depicted by the vase painters. Beauty, harmony, dignity in 
gesture and pose, care for the person and clothing, calmness 
of countenance: “‘ What an unmistakable mark is given to 
mortals by noble birth, distinguishing them from other 
met"? 

Since persons of lower rank, freed from the convenances, 
are treated in a manner more life-like and more realistic, it 
was in such folk that the artist could study facial expression, 
the index of feeling;° it was through them that they began to 
take an interest in lesser folk; in short it was in such types 
that realism first made its appearance during the thoroughly 
realistic phase of the 5th century before it had triumphed in — 
the 4th, and particularly in the Hellenistic period, delivering 
all, even the gods, from a too rigid and circumscribed dignity. 

Nevertheless it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the 
social rank of a figure. In the 6th century B.c. the same 
types of Kore and Kouros serve indifferently for gods, for the 
living and for the dead.* They can be determined only by 
the purpose and context of the work and by their attributes. 
Even in the 5th century they did not at the outset know how 
to give the gods specific features which should be nobler than 
those of the already idealized mortal. Are the Doryphoros 
and Diadumenos’ of Polyclitus gods or men? The Munich 
Zeus® certainly has a fine form, but nothing in the countenance 
specially characterizes godhood. One hesitates before many 


1 LXXII, vol. ii, p. 513. 2 Euripides, Hecuba. 

3 VI, vol. ii, p. 82; VII, p. 169. 

4 See, on primitive indeterminateness, Deonna’s “‘ L’indétermination 
primitive dans l’art grec,’ Rev. dethnographie et de sociologie, ili, 1912, 
p. 22; VI, vol. ii, pp. 415. 

5 LXII, vol. i, pp. 488, 496. 6 LXX, p. 212. 


88 ART IN GREECE 


a statue in which the attributes are not sufficiently precise, 
and before many an isolated head. Nevertheless Phidias 
makes a great effort to give to his divine beings a sovereign 
air distinguishing them from mankind. It would seem that | 
he succeeded better than his predecessors in translating their 
majesty, no longer so much by attributes, gesture, posture 
or any such external means, as by the facial features, the 
soul’s reflection. With this master the god-like type began 
to stand out by its expression from that of even an idealized 
mortal. But the differentiation was not complete till the 
4th century and the school of Praxiteles, who knew how to 
indicate more exquisitely still the bourne between the two 
worlds. Soon afterwards the indeterminateness of the old 
days reappeared under the influence of the realism which 
depreciated the gods. Asclepius is sometimes no more than 
a sufficiently common mortal with features lacking in nobility; 
as in former times it is by his attributes alone, his hair and 
serpent, that he is to be distinguished, and all moral expression, 
so finely marked in the 4th century, disappears.’ 

Differentiation between the gods themselves was likewise 
slow in the making and at the beginning was achieved only 
by exterior means—beard, hair, and attributes. In the 
archaism of the 6th century it is difficult, for instance, to 
distinguish between those gods, whose heads and clothes are 
the same, depicted in the black-figure vases. On the red- 
figure vases there is already less uniformity; and even in the 
absence of attributes Hermes differs from Apollo, although 
the older gods, Poseidon, Zeus, Hades, Dionysus and Hephe- 
stus, are still capable of being confounded. It was later only 
that Poseidon acquired the individual characters which dis- 
tinguish him from Zeus, and often the distinction is very 
slight; has not Kuphranor been reproached for having endowed 
Poseidon with a nobility which cannot even be surpassed 
in a Zeus? Asclepius differs from Zeus by nuances in his 
physiognomy which the artists of the 4th century, masters 
of expression as they were, knew how to render. 

Greek art is aristocratic. For many a long day it never 
sought to give a complete picture of the social complex and 
did not interest itself to the same extent in the various classes 
which made it up. It glorified Greeks of good birth and the 

1 VII, p. 188 


ART AND SOCIAL RANK 89 


gods conceived in their likeness, and for them it sought the 
most beautiful and noble types. The lower orders might hold 
the curious regard of the ceramist who was brought close to 
them by the conditions of his own life; in high art the common 
people merely accompanied their masters and in the classic 
period are never treated for their own sake. It was later on, 
only, when the ideal had evolved, that the Hellenistic artist 
sometimes chose them as the unique theme of his studies and 
accorded them a place equal with the rest. 

And yet it was a democratic art, if by that we mean that 
it is addressed to all, that all may enjoy it and that it is the 
expression of the ideas and common aspirations of the city. 


CHAPTER VII 
ART AND MANNERS! 


THE monuments of pre-Hellenic Greece already have on them 
pugilists (the Hagia Triada vase with boxers), and acrobats 
vaulting over a bull (Tiryns fresco, Knossos ivory statuette, 
gems), showing active muscles; they show that the Aigeans 
attached a certain importance to bodily exercise and that 
the subject inspired artists. But it was reserved for Greece 
to bestow on this culture of the human body a care unknown 
elsewhere, and to her artists to obtain from it new effects. 
Gymnastics” for the Hellenes were an indispensable prepara- 
tion for the social life of the soldier-citizen; they moulded 
body and mind alike, since a strong and noble spirit could 
exist only in a robust and healthy body. As artists they 
admired this healthy body, but the esthetic interest was 
grafted on to the utilitarian and derived from a social 
necessity. The Greeks said that it was gymnastics which 
enabled the Athenians to win Marathon and the Thebans 
Leuctra. Socrates counselled the young Epigenes to cultivate 
his. neglected body: “‘ What a strange body hast thou, 
Epigenes! ... Is that combat valueless to thee whose prize 
is life, should the Athenians come and propose it? Yet many 
men, owing to their bad condition, perish in the dangers of 
war and often at the cost of their honour; many, for the same 
‘reason, are taken alive; and others gain a bad reputation, 
founded on the feebleness of their body, which causes them to 
pass for cowards. ... For my part, I think it easier and 
more agreeable to submit to the fatigues necessary in order 
to obtain a vigorous body. All is different to him whose body 
is in good condition from him in whom it is unfit; health and 
vigour fall to the lot of those whose bodily condition is good; 
many there are who, by this means, come through a, soldier’s 


1 CCI ff. 
2 On gymnastics and their results see CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘“‘ Gymnastica ;”’ 
CCIII, CCV-VIII. 
90 


ART AND MANNERS 91 


dangers with honour; others help their comrades, render 
service to their country and achieve fame. Know well that 
there is no struggle, no single act of thy life, for which thou wilt 
ever repent having trained thy body; indeed, in all the actions 
of mankind the body hath its uses, and in every use to which 
we put it it is necessary that it should be as fit as may be. 
Furthermore, even in those functions in which thou thinkest 
it has least part, in those of the mind, who knows but that 
great errors are often made in thinking because the body is 
indisposed ? Bad memory, a laggard mind, sloth and folly 
are ofttimes the result of a vicious disposition of our body 
injuring the mind to such degree as to make us forget that 
which we know. If, on the other hand, the body is healthy, 
it is quite certain that there is no risk of a man coming to such 
a pass as the result of not having a sound constitution. .. .’’* 

The young men obtained this training of the body in the 
gymmasia as the necessary preparation for their duties as 
citizens. As early as in the black-figure painting of the 6th 
century, but particularly in the red-figure painting of the 5th 
century, and on the reliefs, we see them stripping off their 
garments, anointing themselves with oil, wrestling together, 
throwing the discus and the javelin, and bathing themselves, 
and they provide any number of motifs for the Greek artist 
who catches them in every position of their bodies, whether 
in action or repose. Robust and courageous, but modest 
also, they realize Aristophanes’? ideal; they have “fresh 
complexions, broad shoulders, a reticent tongue, well-covered 
buttocks and small pudenda ’”’; they bear no resemblance to 
those effeminate and talkative young men, knowing nothing 
of such exercises, who have “‘ pale faces, narrow shoulders and 
chests, a garrulous tongue, thin buttocks, over-developed 
pudenda, and are irresolute in judgment.’ Does not the 
painting on a 6th-century cup® bearing the signature of 
Phidippus (British Museum) illustrate the words of the comic 
poet and the counsels of Socrates? Ephebi are met together 
in the palestra; one of them resembles Epigenes of the 
neglected body—he is fat and awkward in his posture; all 
about him are his agile and supple companions with their 
lissom bodies, seeming to mock at him. Obesity which has 


+ Xenophon’s Recollections of Socrates. — 2 Clouds, v, 1005. 
3 CXCIV, vol. x, p. 368, Fig. 214. - 


92 ART IN GREECE 


not been dissipated by exercise, and flabby flesh whose muscles 
it has not hardened, are despised and relegated with one 
consent to those grotesque creatures the Sileni, to the comic 
actors who exaggerate it, to slaves to whom gymnastics 
are forbidden, to barbarians and all whom it is desired to 
ridicule. 

The life of a Greek city included communal ceremonial, 
usually carried out as an act of homage to the gods, which was 
both civic as well as religious in character, the divinity being 
merged in the city which he or she protected. This included 
solemn processions such as the Panathenea immortalized by 
Phidias; and especially competitions in song, dance, music, 
scenic representation and bodily exercises.’ These were acts 
of civic loyalty. Only those who were free men and of Greek 
nationality might take part in the musical and gymnastic 
games; slaves and barbarians were strictly excluded during 
the Greek golden age. A competitor must never have under- 
gone shameful punishment nor have been deprived of his 
rights as a citizen. To be a competitor at the Olympic Games 
was the equivalent of recognition of Hellenic nationality. 
Restricted to a single city (the Panathenza and Dionysia of 
Athens), or including all Hellenes (the great Olympic Games), 
these festivals always required the participation of art, 
which once more bears witness to its social function. Drama 
and Attic comedy were not originally purely esthetic enter- 
tainments but acts of patriotic cult, whatever their much 
discussed genesis—whether funerary or Dionysiac—and they 
preserved this character, more or less attenuated, throughout 
antiquity. Was it not in Dionysus’ sanctuary that the theatre 
was set up, and did not all the people have official access to 
it, as did the ambassadors of colonies and allied States ? 

Among the national festivals which have provided the 
artist with numerous themes there are some which exerted a 
decisive influence on figured art. These are the festivals of 
which bodily exercise was the main interest, and at which the 
Greeks rivalled. one another in wrestling, foot and chariot 
racing, armed and unarmed, discus and javelin throwing, and 
boxing. They had plenty of opportunity at the great games 
which at regular intervals brought together Hellenes from all 
over Greece: the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian 


1 OCV-VI, CCVIII. 


ART AND MANNERS 93 


Games, as also in local games, such as the Panathenea.! 
With their body, which had been trained to be useful to its 
_owner but more especially to the country, the Greeks did 
homage to the gods, showing it off to them in the plenitude 
of its strength, ready to serve them as it was ready to serve 
the city. And at the beginning those who took part in these 
gymnastic competitions were not professionals; athletes did 
not devote all their time to training. They were citizens, 
from the best families and also from more lowly stock, who 
had other daily occupations. Gradually the pride of victory, 
the glory it conferred, and the material advantages which 
flowed from it, created a class of professional athletes— 
somewhat before the time of Plato, according to Galen, and 
possibly earlier still.? 

What advantages did Greek art extract from these 
manners and customs ? 

In order to run or wrestle the body had to be stripped 
of clothing which hindered the free play of the limbs. The 
Aigean athletes wore narrow drawers, the masculine garment 
of those days, which the Greeks still used in the early centuries. 
But the Dorian Cretans and the Lacedzemonians, says Thucy- 
dides, set the example of wrestling stark naked; the runner 
Orsippus of Megara cast off the d:¢@wpa to arrive more surely 
at his goal in the 15th Olympiad. Soon, stripping com- 
pletely became general in the games as in the palestra. 
That this stark nakedness aroused no disapprobation was due 
to the agelong habit of seeing the body very nearly stripped 
on such occasions, preparing opinion for complete nudity, and 
it must also have been favoured by the demands of religion 
itself that in ritual celebrations the faithful should present 
himself naked in token of submission and humility. Such 
a custom was not unknown among other ancient peoples, 
but nowhere except in Greece has complete nakedness 
triumphed in actuality and won its way in art. Here we 
really seem to have a characteristic feature of the Greek race 
favoured by social circumstances. The Greek had no false 
shame in seeing the body stripped, and this distinguished 
him from all other ancient peoples. The ASgean Cretan 
avoided stripping completely, and the Egyptians, Chaldeans, 


1 CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘* Ludi publici.” 
2 Tbid., s.v. ‘** Athleta.”’ $ CCVII. 


94 ART IN GREECE 


Assyrians and Etruscans were thoroughly averse to it except 
in the case of the lower orders, or of prisoners who were 
stripped as a humiliation, orin the course of ritual performance. 
Aisthetic nakedness is so essentially Greek that wherever we 
find it we may be quite sure there was Hellenic influence at 
work. And it is from Greece, again, that modern art took it, 
after the Renaissance rediscovered the obscured tradition, 
unveiled once more the body hidden by Christian ideas of 
modesty, and enthusiastically gave itself to the study of 
human anatomy. Conversely, every time that Greek art 
underwent Oriental influence this principle was undermined. 
Ionian art, heir to the art of the Avgeans, and in close contact 
with the East, does not like it at all; the vase painters of the 
6th and 5th centuries, whose origin was not purely Hellenic 
—as is often indicated by their names—avoided it, preferring 
drapery, and displaying great ingeniousness in the niceties 
of its arrangement. Thus Amasis, doubtless a native of 
Naukratis or Samos, and Nicosthenes, Andocides, Douris, 
Hieron and Brygus. When they worked for the foreigner, 
for a Scythian, for instance, Greek artists kept this scruple 
in mind and hid the privy parts with an opportune piece of 
drapery. Towards the close of ancient times, when the 
Oriental spirit triumphed, complete nudity appeared to shock; 
draperies and fig-leaves—these latter did not appear before 
the time of Constantine—were the result. Art renounced 
the Greek conception for many centuries and the nude 
disappeared—except when the subject absolutely required it 
(Last Judgment). And when the Renaissance once more 
came to hold the Greek ideal in honour there was continual 
opposition between the two tendencies. The beautiful nudes 
of Michael Angelo scandalized priests and faithful people, 
and Ammanati confessed, as though to a crime, of having 
reproduced nude and therefore shameless persons. 

The particular note introduced into art by the Greeks was 
the esthetic appreciation of the human form in a state of 
nature as though it had been that of a beautiful animal, 
strong and agile. If nudity appears among other peoples 
of antiquity it is never because the artist takes pleasure in 
it and admires human attitudes and anatomy but because 
the subject necessitates it. It was the exercises of the 
palestra and the national games which taught the Greeks to 


PLATE III 


Louvre) 


( 


Half of the 5th 


Century 


le 


FREJUS APHRODITE 


DRAPED FEMALE STATUE 


Second 


in) 


in 


(Berl 
5th Century 


[ face p. 94 


ART AND MANNERS 95 


understand this human beauty, and, long before Cellini, they 
considered that ‘‘ the alpha and omega of all art is to be able 
to draw a nude man or woman.” 

Although nakedness was actual on certain occasions during 
the life of a Greek—in the gymnastic exercises—it must not 
be imagined, however, that the Greeks lived and fought 
without clothes as we see them depicted in their reliefs, 
paintings and statues. The esthetic vision transformed the 
reality. Nudity became ideal, and a necessity of beauty. 

Its use became generalized with time. The black-figure 
vases (6th century) still show the gods and heroes clothed. 
Later on, they strip them completely and even Zeus is not 
excepted. It is instructive, in this connection, to follow the 
evolution of a single pictured type such as that of Hermes 
-or Dionysus. 

Complete nudity was for long the appanage of men, who 
were obliged by the circumstances of their public life to 
appear unclothed from time to time. But women took no 
part in the gymnastic exercises and games; they lived in 
the gynzeceum and busied themselves with domestic duties; 
they hid the charms of their persons from envious eyes. 
Feminine nudity is rare in art until the 4th century, and it 
is there explained by the necessities—usually erotic—of the 
subject more than by the artist’s zesthetic pleasure in rendering 
her form. In vase-painting the nudes are courtesans, pipe 
players, dancers, women making their toilet or bathing. 
A few potters such as Euphronius and Brygus bear witness 
to a certain predilection for these subjects. Statuary and 
reliefs, less free in choice of subject than industrial art, have 
but rare examples to show in the 5th century: there is the 
Esquiline Venus who is perhaps the diver Hydna,' and the 
Rome Niobid who, in her dying agony, forgets the modest 
reserve of the young girl and allows her tunic to slip down.’ 
On the beautiful reliefs of the Ludovisi throne® the sculptor 
carves a naked pipe player, seated in a bold attitude, and he 
contrasts the courtesan with the chaste matron. Though 
there was nothing in masculine nakedness to astonish the 
Greeks, the nudity of a woman still came as a shock to their 


1 Klein, ‘‘ Zur sogenannten Aphrodite vom Esquilin’’ in Jahresh 
de k. arch. Instituts in Wien, x, p. 141. 
2 See above, p. 83. 3 See above, p. 83. 


96 ART IN GREECE 


habits. Most of them disapproved of the education given 
to young Spartan girls, who were hardily brought up like the 
boys, appearing naked with them in certain games, and 
dressing in the short Dorian tunic. They called them 
pawvounptdec, because the folds of the chiton, unsewn, opened 
when they walked and allowed the upper leg to be seen. 
Women gradually caught the contagion, to the point of 
abandoning the last vestige of drapery and yielding their 
form completely to the gaze of the artist who came more and 
more to appreciate its beauty and faithfully to render its 
specific characters. Apart from the exceptions indicated, 
woman, whether mortal or Aphrodite, was draped from head 
to foot in the 6th century and the first half of the 5th. The 
artists of the second half of the 5th, who brought to perfection 
the technique of the transparent drapery on which the Ionians 
had made a tentative beginning in the 6th century, readily 
clothe the feminine form with diaphanous materials which 
permitted the body to be seen as though it were nude (pedi- 
ments of the Parthenon, the Nike of Pzonius of Mende, etc.), 
and the unknown author (Aleamenes ?) of the Fréjus Aphro- 
dite’ (Pl. III) uncovers at most the left shoulder and breast. 
The 4th century went far along the same road. The draperies 
now slip off the shoulders altogether and only stop at the 
hips (Aphrodite of Milo, the Praxitelian Aphrodite of Arles, 
first half of the 4th century).2 Praxiteles is the first com- 
pletely to undrape the goddess (Cnidian Aphrodite, middle 
of the 4th century).’ “‘ No garment enwraps her. She is 
nude and completely discovers all her beauties. With one 
hand alone does she furtively preserve her modesty ”’ (Lucian). 
This is an innovation of cardinal importance, for Greek art 
now multiplied nude women, particularly Aphrodites making 
this gesture of modesty (Pl, IV), preparing to enter the bath, 
and coming up out of the waves; but there was surprise at 
first, because the inhabitants of Cos, to whom Praxiteles 
offered his Aphrodite unveiled, preferred_a clothed Aphro- 
dite severum id ac pudicum arbitrantes (Pliny). Indeed it 
must have caused as much astonishment as the hardihood of 
Michael Angelo when he first dared to disrobe completely 
the Christ and the Virgin. Even the goddesses gave up their 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 118. 2 Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 269, 468. 
S Ibid., p. 278. 


PLATE IV 


MEDICI APHRODITE. Uffizi (Florence) 


[ face p. 96 


1 
‘ 


ART AND MANNERS 97 


modest reserve and their former austerity; they became as 
naked as the old Oriental goddess of fecundity, as the ancient 
female idols of the first centuries of pre-Hellenic Greece. 

The naked form which was admired was the body moulded 
and fashioned by gymnastic exercises. The “ paidotribes,”’ 
moulded by gymnastics, recreated the body of the young boy. 
These gymnastics developed all parts of the body harmoniously 
without any one profiting to the disadvantage of the rest. 
It was for the lack of this equilibrium, this proportion, that 
the professional athletes were reproached, bringing about 
hypertrophy of a single part while they neglected the varied 
exercises which would develop the body as a whole. Socrates 
praises the youth called upon to entertain, by his dancing, 
_ the guests at a banquet given by Callias: ‘“‘ No part of his body 
was inactive; neck, legs, and hands—all were in motion; so 
should dance anyone who desires to have a supple body.” 
He thus avoids having “ stout legs and thin shoulders, like 
the stadium runners, or stout shoulders and thin legs, like 
the wrestlers,” and “he obtains correct proportions for the 
whole of his exercised body.’* ‘‘ Think you,” says Galen, 
‘that I praise running and other éxercises which make the 
body lean? Not at all; I blame a lack of proportion where- 
ever I may find it.” Alone among the athletes the competitors 
for the pentathlum who use all their members in turn, possess 
this desirable balance; and, said Aristotle, ‘‘ these are the 
handsomest men because they are both strong and supple at 
the same time.” 

The head must not destroy this harmony or attract 
attention to itself by a too great intensity of thought or 
feeling. The ideal was a calm and well-balanced intellectual 
life that was master of the senses—a perfect correspondence 
between the physical and mental life. The 5th century 
statues show men who are both apt for the intellectual labours 
necessitated by the conduct of public and private affairs and 
for the physical labours entailed by war. Man presented 
himself to the onlooker confident in his bodily beauty; he 
seemed to experience the joy of living, of being naked, and 
having beautiful limbs harmoniously forming a perfect rhythm. 
This ideal, however, was not always attained, and the pro- 
fessional athletes, whose bodies were already rendered dis- 


1 Xenophon’s Banquet. 
7 


98 ART IN GREECE 


harmonic owing to some unique exercise, frequently allowed 
the body to dominate the mind. Euripides was one of the first 
to combat this abuse of physical exercises, and he proclaims 
his despite for muscular strength by itself. Athletes had fine 
bodies without thought; they were statues minus souls. 
‘*To eat, drink, sleep, unload the belly, and roll in the mud 
and dust—such is the athlete’s existence,” said Galen. Side 
by side with the beautiful effigies of the complete athlete, 
there are others in which the artist has not feared to emphasize 
brutality and the.absence of all intellectual life. The head 
of the ephebus of Tarsus (Constantinople Museum, 5th century)" 
is that of a limited being: such is often the aspect of Heracles, 
the hero famous for his simpleness and gluttony.?_ The pugilist 
of the Terme museum? (8rd century) and the Roman wrestlers 
on a Lateran mosaic‘ are nothing but low brutes. 

The Greeks had frequent occasion to see youthful and 
naked bodies and to appreciate their beauty. Artists, 
people of extremely fine sensibility and feeling, had this love 
of the living form to a more intense degree than other folk. 
In the palestra and the games they could contemplate it in 
its most diverse aspects, relaxed in repose or the muscles 
contracted in violent movement. They studied the muscula- 
ture, attitudes and gestures of this human body when it was 
vibrating with life, not cold and inert as the bored model 
presents himself to modern sculptors in their studios, and so 
they were able to pass on into their work the freshness and 
spontaneity of the real thing. 

This study was imposed on the artists not wert by 
their zesthetic vision but by social conditions. The champions 
in the games were proud of their victories which were at the 
same time a victory for their city. They wanted to perpetuate 
that memory for ever and they ordered statues of themselves 
from the artists, and these effigies were set up in the sacred 
enclosure in never-ending homage to the divinity.2 These 
effigies showed the subject as he was, ready for the fray, as 
he appeared in the arena, or as he was when victorious; 

1 LXXIII, p. 125; RA, 1899, ii, p. 19; REG, 1899, p. 453. 

2 Cf. the head in the British Museum, LXX, p. 179, Fig. 75. 

3 LXII, vol. ii, p. 492. 

a Helbig, Guide dans les musées darchéologie classique de Rome. 


Fr. trans. by Toutain, 1, p. 524, No. 702. 
5 CCV; CLXXXYV, s.v. “ Statua, Ludi publici.’’ 


ART AND MANNERS 99 


they were rarely draped—usually nude. Sometimes they 
were shown in repose holding some attribute such as the 
instrument of their victory or the crown or wreath received 
as prize; sometimes they were shown in violent action, carrying 
out their exploit, as in Myron’s Diskobolos. From the time 
of the earliest athletic statues of the 6th century at Olympia, 
namely those of Praxidamas of Aigina and Rhexibius of 
Opunte, up to the closing period of Greek art, the images of 
wrestlers, runners and pugilists could be counted by hundreds, 
because with each returning festival their number increased. 
The vase-painters, like the sculptors, who watched the ephebus 
and the man in his prime exercising in the paleestra, did not 
forget the winning athletes, and they commemorated the 
runners with stout legs on the panathenaic amphore’ which 
were given as prizes. Death itself became the pretext for 
this glorification of the body, because the stele of the dead 
frequently called to mind that he had once been a champion; 
he would be represented with the discus, which seemed to 
form a saint’s aureole for his head (Diskophoros stele, Athens, 
6th century);” or, helmeted, he would be running swiftly in 
the strange attitude of the archaic race (stele of the Hoplito- 
dromos, Athens, 6th century).° 

Peloponnesian art more especially delighted from its 
inception in athletic statuary. Among the works of a Pytha- 
goras of Rhegium (first half of the 5th century)* one finds 
practically nothing but figures of athletes; there is not a 
single isolated statue of a woman, only a few draped male 
figures and a few legendary or divine subjects. Polyclitus? 
likewise glorifies the athlete’s strength by choice. 

The civic role and the importance of gymnastics gave to 
Greek art a virile character; just as, in the city, where woman 
played an obscure and minor part, man for a long time pre- 
dominated in artistic representations. 

Was this man at every stage from his infancy to his old 
age? The subjects might well demand such variety. Never- 
theless, the age preferred by the artist was that in which the 
young and vigorous man had just reached the plenitude of his 


1 Brauchitsch, Die Panathenaische Preisamphoren ; XCII, p. 70; 
CXLIV, vol. x, p. 128. 
2 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 664. 3 Ibid., p. 649. 
4 CLXIV. 5 CLXVII, CLXXI. 


100 ART IN GREECE 


development, having lost the softness and roundness of child- 
hood, the lankness and awkwardness of early adolescence, 
yet before maturity could fill him out and make him heavy- 
looking or age could sap his energies. This was the age of the 
Apollo and Omphalos' (about 460), of the Diskobolos, Dory- 
phoros, and Diadumenos. These youths, in the full flower 
of their sixteen to twenty summers, are to be seen every- 
where, in statues in the round, on reliefs and vase-paintings, 
and in terra cotta figurines. They are beardless, or at the 
most their cheeks are furnished with a light down that just 
begins to show near their ears.2, Sometimes, although already 
perfectly muscled, they are even younger and their fourteen 
years are still impubescent (ephebus No. 698 of the Acropolis, 
earlier than 480;° Polyclitan ephebi). Such is the type which 
became paramount from the 6th century, which is celebrated 
by the sculptors of Kouroi and which persists to the very end 
in Greek art—the wonderful body of healthy youth, with its 
muscular strength and suppleness that is yet quietly graceful 
at the same time. Sure of their beauty these ephebi remained 
modest and full of reserve and control. Look at them as 
they go past, grave and calm, with head modestly bent, on 
the frieze of the Panathenea. They know that they are 
the city’s glory and that its future is with them, but they 
still maintain their respectful submission to those who have 
gone before them and who teach them to become useful 
citizens. They it is who are sung by the poets and praised 
by the philosophers, and it is they whom the artists eternalize. 
They are at the age of that most perfect beauty which arouses 
universal attention—a kind of religious emotion. ‘‘ Beauty 
has about it something royal, particularly when, as it was 
then in Autolycus, it is united with modesty and self-respect. 
As a light burning brightly in the night-time draws all eyes 
to it, so did the beauty of Autolycus draw upon him the gaze 
of all. Not one among the guests who looked upon him but 
had his soul moved; some fell silent, others made some 
gesture. ...” “If, then, I am really beautiful, said Crito- 
bulus, ‘ and if I produce on you the same impression produced 
on me by someone beautiful, I swear by all the gods that I 
would rather have beauty than a king’s power. Indeed, I 


1 LXXII, vol.i, p. 405. 2 Xenophon’s Banquet. 
3 LXXVIT, p. 452. 


ART AND MANNERS 101 


contemplate Clinias with greater pleasure than all that is 
most beautiful among men, and I would gladly suffer blindness 
to all else than Clinias; night and sleep are accursed because 
I can no longer behold him, and I know infinite delight when 
day breaks and the sun returns because they will enable me 
again to see Clinias.’’+ 

This preference sometimes became exclusive. From the 
6th century the Peloponnesian studios, then, at the beginning 
of the 5th century, the Argive school of Ageladas and his 
disciples, devoted themselves to the glorification of the 
bodies of ephebi more than to any other subject, and Poly- 
clitus, who followed in their footsteps, avoids representing 
ripe age. Time accentuated the tendency. There are 
plenty of bearded men in the black-figure pottery of the 6th 
century; there are less in the red-figure pottery of the 5th 
century, in which the invasion of the ephebi, who supplanted 
even the gods, is complete. 

The artist was haunted by this youthful and athletic 
type, and he sought to bring back all forms of human life 
to this common esthetic model. He did not fail to recognize 
that both sexes and all ages have each their beauty: “ Just 
as the child has its beauty, so has the adolescent, the mature 
man, and the aged. As witness the Thallophori of Athena, 
who are chosen from among the handsome old men as though 
to proclaim that beauty belongs to all ages.” Nevertheless, 
the various stages of life do not interest them so much by 
their appropriate features differentiating one from the other, 
as by their resemblance to this ideal type; in their eyes the 
child and the adolescent foreshadow and prepare for the age 
of the ephebus, the mature man prolongs it, and the aged man 
preserves its memory in diminished form. 

For a long time children interest artists very little. Their 
presence was necessary in certain subjects; from the earliest 
times the Aphrodite kourotrophos held a child in her arms; 
Demeter the maternal cares for it in the Homeric hymn. 
On vases and in reliefs the child takes his part in the funeral 
scenes of the family, standing on his own small legs or carried 
by his mother or a servant. He plays with his dog, a hoop, 
or pulls a little cart, or as a small serving lad he accompanies 
his master. But the artist for long seems unaware of a 


1 Xenophon’s Banquet. 2 Ibid, 


102 ART IN GREECE 


child’s specific form with its rounded contours in which the 
muscles do not show, its plumpness and its proportionately 
large head. A child is represented as a grown-up person in 
miniature. Under the influence of the gymnastic ideal he is 
a tiny athlete, an ephebus in little with an ephebus’ spare 
frame and firm muscles. Thus did 5th-century art conceive 
him. On a red-figure vase of severe style’ at Wurzburg it 
is difficult to tell if the figure represents a child who has 
just received domestic chastisement with a sandal—whose 
imprint remains—or a lover who has been roughly sent flying 
by his rival. A few potters, always more realistic than the 
sculptors and great painters, do occasionally show some 
interest in ages outside the common ideal. Brygus (begin- 
ning of the 5th century) draws a small boy playing a pipe 
and leaning against a bearded man; or a Satyr chastising 
his child with a sandal—and here for the first time one notes 
Satyrs of different ages—or a young girl, whose figure looks 
to be about fourteen years in age, dancing.*——-Tentative but 
still imperfect efforts in a new direction which sculpture was 
only to make at a very much later date. At the close of the 
5th century Euripides took pleasure in little children, and 
here, as in so many other ways, literature was ahead of plastic 
art. In the 4th century, when realism began to assert itself, 
Plutus and Dionysus were still no more than accessory to the 
groups of Cephisodotus (after 371) and Praxiteles (about 
340), in which the interest was centred in the adult figures 
of Eirene and Hermes. Yet there is a sensible difference 
between the two. Cephisodotus still accords to the child 
no more than an indifferent regard; Praxiteles conceives 
the head and body with greater truth. In Hellenistic times 
the child had definitely conquered his place in art.* He was 
now reproduced for his own sake, because it gave pleasure 
to see him at his games and in his struggles, smiling or put 
out; he no longer masquerades in a grown-up body with a 
musculature beyond his years, but is shown as he is in all his 
gaucherie and indeterminate curves of his body. Roman 
art was to go so far as to sculp charming heads of new-born 
infants. One cannot attribute the tardiness of this conquest 
entirely to the watering-down of the ephebic ideal because 


1 AM, xxx, p. 404. at ae 2 VI, vol. iii, p. 289. 
V e9 p- . 


ART AND MANNERS 103 


Christian iconography evolved in the same way.' In all 
lands and in every period art began with indeterminate 
types which lent themselves indifferently to divers uses, and 
only by degrees differentiated them by giving them their 
appropriate features. 

The body of the full-grown and bearded man is frequently 
younger than its age; in it one perceives not only the effect 
of gymnastics which keep it robust and prevent it from 
putting on flesh, but also of this ephebic ideal. 

“When years advance and old age arrives” says an 
Egyptian text, ‘‘ weakness and second childhood come, and 
with each day a new misery falls upon it—the eyes grow 
dim, the ears close up, and strength ebbs, although the heart 
continues beating; the lips grow silent, the spirit darkens 
and yesterday is no longer remembered; the bones are full 
_ of pain, all that is good becomes bad, and savour completely 
vanishes: old age brings misery to a man in all things.” 
This gloomy picture of the miseries of age would have been 
subscribed to by the Greeks. Achilles might admire the 
handsome and dignified figure of the elderly Priam seated 
before him, but Priam himself confesses that the dead body 
of a young man is always beautiful but that of an old man 
is repellent. The Greeks symbolized old age in the guise 
of a decrepit being, ugly and repulsive, which the vigorous 
athlete, Heracles, vanquishes; it is the Avypov vEpa<. 

Art avoids the picture of an enfeebled man regretful of 
his vanished strength and beauty. It is represented but 
seldom on the funerary lecythi and the stele of the 5th century. 
Death beautified the body; far from perpetuating the memory 
of its collapse, it gives to it an idealized image; it is no longer 
what it was at the moment of passing but what it was in 
former days, what it would wish to be—young and beautiful. 
It is true that there were, during the classic period, a few 
realistic representations of old age, particularly in vase-paint- 
ing. On the kyathos of Pistoxenus,” the old Linus is teaching 
Iphicles, and Geropse, a bent and wrinkled female servant 
with a scraggy neck, accompanies Heracles—a sketch from 
the life which testifies to close observation on the part of 
the potters at a time when sculptors still neglected it. At 


1 VI, vol. iii, p. 390. 
2 CXXIX, p. 178; CXLIV, vol. viii, p. 587. 


104 ART IN GREECE 


the most one may note on the eastern pediment at Olympia 
(about 460) the torso of an old man grown meagre in his age, 
with a fat, soft, creased chest. But more often painters and 
sculptors rejuvenate their old men, and avoid unsteady poses 
and flabby or creased flesh. These robust and handsome 
ancients are to be distinguished only by a stick, by their 
white hair and beards and their slight baldness. On the 
frieze of the Panatheneza they have almost youthful bodies." 
In the 4th century and particularly in Hellenistic times the 
artist begins to take note of the wear and tear of age; thence- 
forward he makes any number of images of old and drunken 
women and of old peasant men and women.” 

Gods and heroes caught the contagion. Some among 
them have a perfect right to the bodies of athletes because, 
like Theseus and Heracles, they had fought against their 
foes and accomplished great exploits; whereas others among 
them, such as Apollo and Hermes, had instituted the gym- 
nastic games and were their protectors. But all look as 
though they had been fashioned and moulded in some heavenly 
palestra. This was not yet the period (dating from the 4th 
century) in which Eros, Dionysus and Apollo became languid 
and effeminate, with soft and tender bodies, even taking on 
an equivocal character. Whatever their name or age, all 
were extremely muscular. In the 5th century Eros is still 
a vigorous boy, not the lively child of the Hellenists. Hermes 
and Apollo realize the full beauty of twenty summers. And 
the gods—Hermes and Dionysus—whom artists delighted. 
to represent as majestic and bearded, in the 6th century,. 
grew young and beardless. 

The imagists of neolithic Greece, like all primitives, 
emphasized the physiological features proper to woman, 
exaggerating the breasts, the thighs, and the pudenda (ex- 
ample: steatopygous idol at Knossos); the authors of the 
eneolithic idols of the Cyclades (about 8000-2200 B.c.) even 
represent the female form in pregnancy, doubtless with the 
intention of bringing about actual fertility by means of 
sympathetic magic. Archaic art distinguishes the sexes 
by colour—reddish brown for men and white for women—by 
a differently shaped eye, in the paintings on Corinthian vases,° 


1 VI, vol. iii, p. 239. 2 Ibid., p. 896. 
3 CXLYV, vol. ii, p. 508. 


ART AND MANNERS 105 


and by divers other means. But woman’s anatomical charac- 
ters are still unrecognized by the artist. The Korai of the 
6th century have flat chests and narrow, boyish hips. Men 
and women alike wear their hair long, and sometimes one is 
inelined to hesitate, when faced with isolated heads, as to 
which is which. This indeterminateness had not altogether 
disappeared in the 5th century; the Bologna head,’ which 
is now recognized as that of the Lemnian Athena of Phidias 
(towards 450) was once considered to be masculine. Here, 
too, the ephebic ideal exerts its attraction. Female bodies 
in the 5th century are large in frame, and the facial features 
are virile. The Giustiniani Hestia (towards 460), certainly, 
is innocent of all the graces!* Standing squarely, hand on 
hip, she seems more disposed to combat than to smile or 
please. When a woman did bare her body, it was thick-set 
and robust, with muscles ready for action; the abdomen 
was flat, the hips narrow. In the words of Taine, these 
women are “strong as horses.’? Yet some thousand years 
or so earlier the plastic appearance of women, at a time 
when Cretan naturalism rendered it with astonishing truth, 
had been very different. In Greece we have to wait until 
the 4th century and Hellenistic times to see the artist not 
merely unveil woman completely but represent her specific 
features realistically. What a difference is there between 
the Esquiline Aphrodite (towards 460)? and the Aphrodite 
of the sandal of Polycharmus* or the stooping Aphrodite of 
Diodalses,° whose bodies are graceful and voluptuous and 
their flesh soft and delicate !° 


1 LXX, PI. iii. 2 LIX, Pl. 491. 
8 LXII, vol. ii, p. 686. 4 Ibid., p. 586. 
5 Ibid., p. 585. 


‘6 See, on the evolution of the female figure, VI, vol iii, pp. 68, 66, 
238, 345. 


CHAPTER VIII 


ART, ITS CIVIC TEACHING. SOCIAL ROLE OF 
THE ARTIST 


Ur to the close of the 5th century art was essentially the 
expression of the city. It shed beauty all about it, it was 
true, but its aim was primarily didactic; it did not so much 
seek to please as to instruct; it addressed itself not so much 
to the heart or to the emotions, as to the reason and the mind. 
It tried to inculcate great and noble ideas in the mind of 
every citizen. 

Closely bound up with religion, art was an instruction 
in theology. It had to inculcate in the people faith in their 
gods, to teach them the great mystic truths through beauty. 
Seeing always around him these gods—multiplied by art in 
the temples and even on vases—who were superhuman and 
yet so like to man, the Greek understood that they were 
powerful because they were victorious over monsters and 
foes, that they were everywhere present, protecting the city 
and directing human destinies. While it safeguarded its 
esthetic independence, art in Greece was a powerful auxiliary 
of faith; it was ‘‘ an instruction in theology, a veritable Bible 
of legend, just as the facades of Gothic cathedrals were an 
encyclopedia of the ideas of the day ” (Boutmy). 

It was also a lesson in patriotism. It perpetuated in the 
sight of all the glory of the mythical and real forebears of 
the people who had fought to insure for their descendants a 
strong and prosperous city, and it stimulated them to follow 
in their steps.1. These sculptured heroes, these Lapiths 
overthrowing the Centaurs, and these Greeks of legend 
vanquishing Amazons and Trojans—Theseus and Heracles 
triumphing over monsters—seemed to be echoing to all men 
the valiant counsels which the aged Tyrtzus gave to the 
Spartans: “It is a fine thing for a brave man to die in the 
front rank of those who fight for their country. ... Let 


1 See above, p. 72. 
106 


ARTS CIVIC, TEACHING 107 


each one, standing squarely on his feet, rooted to the ground, 
and biting his lips, keep firm, his legs, loins and arms well 
covered by his great buckler. Let each one raise the mighty 
spear in his right hand, with the terrible plume waving on 
his helm. Foot to foot, shield against shield, waving plumes 
mingling and helmets clashing, let the warriors press breast 
to breast, each sword and spear-point meeting in shock of 
battle.” In their Agora, and standing before the group of 
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Athenians would think 
of all those who had sacrificed their lives to make Athens 
free, and as they sang the famous scolia of the Tyrannicides 
they would vow that they, too, would carry a sword in the 
branch of myrtle. The many works of art which commem- 
orate the glorious or tragic episodes of Greek history con- 
_ stituted so many appeals to the best in them. Looking at 
them, their consciousness of their own worth became ever 
clearer; they took tremendous pride in this race of theirs 
which was so superior to the despicable barbarians. The 
monuments confirm Pericles’ words: “When you feel its 
greatness, remember that we owe it to men who, by their 
courage, their sense of duty and their fear of shame, were 
leaders in fighting and who, when they thought themselves 
abandoned by fortune, instead of also depriving their country 
of the support of their strong right arm, spent themselves 
generously in carrying out this sacred obligation. By sacrific- 
ing their lives to the republic each one of them won undying 
praise and found the most illustrious sepulture less in the 
tomb which holds their ashes than in the recollection of their 
glory by posterity whenever there are deeds to be sung or 
exploits to be performed.’’! 

Pictures of ephebi at exercise on vases, and statues of 
athletes in the sanctuaries, confirmed in the mind of the Greek 
this necessity to develop and maintain his bodily strength 
that he might place it at the service of his country and be 
ready to defend her in danger, as his forefathers, the gods and 
heroes, had done before him. 

Art, which was the expression of national feeling, at the 
same time kept its flame alive and brought it to a white heat. 

The artist who created pictorial or plastic forms, and 
the people who furnished him with the occasion for creation, 

1 Thucydides, ii, 41. 


108 ART IN GREECE 


knew that they were not working for themselves or their own 
times alone but for the future glory of their city and their 
race. Such monuments, unlike great political exploits, were 
‘* brilliant testimonials ’’ which, said Pericles, ‘* will insure to 
us the admiration both of our contemporaries and of posterity. 
In the time to come we shall be the object of world admiration 
as we already are to-day.’’+ The plan for the embellishment 
of Athens conceived by Pericles was an esthetic programme, 
but it was likewise political. Athens must dominate as much 
by her beauty as by her commerce and her warlike strength. 
The people understood this. Malcontents might find the 
cost exaggerated or disapprove of the employment for luxury 
building of allied tribute which had aforetime been spent on 
common defence against the Persians, but Pericles’ answer 
to them was that ‘‘ this wealth ought to be used for works 
which, when finished, will be productive of immortal glory.’’? 
Time has proved him right. If ancient Greece still lives in 
our thought and in our hearts it is not on account of her 
warlike exploits, since splendid national victories over the 
foreigner also call to mind civil and fratricidal strife, but be- 
cause of the esthetic and spiritual contribution she has made 
to the common heritage of the human race. Subject as they 
are to the vicissitudes of greatness and decadence, States 
disappear, but knowledge and beauty live for ever. 

The part which the artist is called upon to play in Greek 
society is a natural consequence of this conception of art. 
He was not merely an “ artist,” having no personal concern 
in the destiny of the State, as, often enough, he is in our day. 
A citizen, he participated in the life of the city, in which he 
had an essential place. These were not yet the times in 
which Protogenes, absorbed in his art, went on quietly paint- 
ing his Satyr while Demetrius Poliorcetes besieged Rhodes. 
“It is only among us ”’ said Pericles, ‘‘ that a citizen who 
remains estranged from national affairs passes not for a 
lover of quiet but for a man who is of no use.”’? On the 
contrary, “‘ there are among us men who attend to their own 
and to the republic’s business at the same time, and artisans 
who have a sufficiently profound knowledge of the interests 
of the State.’”’* How many were the artists who, like Socrates, 


1 Thucydides, ii, 41. 2 Plutarch’s Pericles. 
3 Thucydides, ii, 41. 4 Ibid., 40. 


ART’S CIVIC TEACHING 109 


who was at once a soldier and a philosopher, and Thucydides, 
who was a strategist and a historian as well, were both actors 
in the great events of the Persian wars and competent to 
celebrate them with enthusiasm! In the 4th century 
Cephisodotus was a member of the triarchy, and in the 8rd 
Euboulides was a proxenos and epimeletesin Athens. Foreign 
artists were readily accorded the title of citizen; statesmen 
were not afraid to ally themselves with them, and Phocion 
the strategist married the sister of Cephisodotus. Cities 
_ frequently demonstrated their gratitude to artists because 
they had exalted national life by means of beauty; though 
Phidias was unfortunate, being persecuted by the enemies 
of Pericles, others were honoured, and, like the painter 
Nicias, had a public sepulture on the road to the Academy. 
In the Dorian cities their social réle was less evident than 
in Athens. The ancient prejudice of the Dorian warriors 
forbade any free citizen to gain his living by manual labour, 
so the practice of art was left to periceci and foreigners. It 
is true that even in Athens there were a few philosophers who 
feared that art might distract the citizen from the performance 
of his prime duty, and so excluded the artist from a Utopian 
city. Plato—and Aristotle agreed with him—desired that 
the astynomeus should reprimand those citizens who wished 
to become artisans and who thus might turn aside from what 
should be their main preoccupation, virtue and the State. 
But they could not fail to recognize the educational poten- 
tiality of works of art, and, in any case, these were but 
isolated protests, 


CHAPTER IX 


TRANSFORMATION IN THE SOCIAL CHARACTER 
OF GREEK ART 


THE character of Greek art as we have now analyzed it was 
maintained unimpaired until the 4th century, and the 5th 
century was the period in which this apotheosis of the religious 
and national life by art was most marked. But the unhappy 
rivalry between Athens and Sparta (Peloponnesian war of 
431-404) led to the ruin of the Athenian empire and the 
exhaustion of all Greece, and to the substitution of a monarchy 
for the governments of the Hellenic free cities. These political 
changes had their repercussion on art, both in its outward 
manner and in the part it had hitherto played in the life of 
the nation. Though the old inspiration was there until the 
end, it had neither the force nor the exclusive character it 
possessed in former times, for new tendencies appeared which 
art was bound to satisfy. These begin to be apparent from 
the 4th century and produced their full effect in Hellenistic 
and imperial times.’ 

Independent Greece was no more; Cheronea (228) had 
seen it crumble. Political power, which had formerly been in 
the hands of the citizens in oligarchie and democratic cities, 
was now concentrated in the hands of one man, often a 
foreigner, who was the absolute ruler of his subjects and 
dispensed both honours and punishment. A brilliant court 
was formed about him and this gave the tone to the rest of 
society. The artist renounced the aspirations of former 
days that he might win the favour of the prince and his 
courtiers. 

Art ceased to serve the city exclusively and placed herself 
at the disposal of kings and princes. Phidias had immor- 
talized Athena and the Olympian Zeus, and Polyclitus had 
celebrated the athletic champions. Lysippus (second quarter 
of the 4th century, about 300) for his part made innumerable 

1 See above, p. 62 ff.; VI, vol. iii, pp. 259, 8311; LXI, LXV, LXIX; 


LXII, vol. ii, pp. 178, 448. 
110 


CHANGING SOCIAL CHARACTER 111 


images of Alexander whom he elevated to divine rank. He 
had the privilege of signing the royal statues while Apelled 
alone was authorized to paint the conqueror’s features and 
Pyrgoteles to engrave them on precious stones. Here was 
something quite new in the history of Greek art—the advent 
of the court artist. The prince was glorified by his images 
and the recital of his exploits: does not the Pergamum frieze 
(towards 180 B.c.) commemorate the wars of the Perga- 
menian princes against the Galatz in the mythic guise of a 
fight between gods and giants? Sumptuous buildings, por- 
ticoes and stoas were built in the name of the king. Luxury, 
love of the colossal and grandiose, pompousness and theatrical 
display,’ the very things Greek art had once avoided, now 

appeared, and were distinct features of Pergamenian art. 
- For the link with the East, long since snapped, was renewed 
with the introduction of the new régime, and its tendencies 
were once more to influence Hellenic art. 

Greece, following in the footsteps of Alexander’s con- 
quests, went out beyond her own borders: the barriers between 
East and West were now definitely down, and henceforth 
there was to be a continual coming and going between them. 
Greeks settled in the new cities of Asia Minor, Syria and 
Egypt, in Antioch and in Alexandria. They travelled in 
lands hitherto hostile or unknown to them, drawn thither 
by prospects of gain, by the desire to seek knowledge, or in 
search of adventure. Orientals came to Greece and made 
their own civilization known at first hand. Commercial 
relations developing with more and more success poured 
Hellenic productions into the East and Oriental goods into 
Greece. There was no longer a hedge between Greeks and 
Barbarians; thanks to Alexander and his successors, who 
united under their single authority diverse races, a cosmo- 
politan era began. The artists, who had. once despised the 
barbarian, began to get interested in the new races with 
whom he was brought into contact and made an effort to 
characterize different breeds by their specific features. The 
differences between separate schools, so marked in the 5th 
century, tended to become obscured from the 4th century 
onward. The great masters travelled more. Scopas worked 
at Tegea, but also at the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (to- 

1 See above, p 62. 


112 ART IN GREECE 


wards 358) and at Ephesus.! There was more effectual give 
and take between studios. Art gradually acquired that 
international character which was its hall-mark during the 
Hellenistic period. 

There was a levelling of social classes after Alexander. 
In the cities of independent Greece a man had to be a citizen 
and to enjoy a citizen’s political rights before he could attain 
to a position of any influence, and foreigners were kept aloof, 
like the slaves. Now a man’s origin mattered little. Each 
one made his way on his own merits, and the king elevated 
or abased men as seemed to him good. Adventurers and 
parvenus began to play an important part. Social dis- 
tinctions which the artist had once conveyed by so many 
subtle shades? grew less discernible. The gods themselves 
did not scruple to take the nonchalant and familiar attitudes 
once reserved for the lower orders. In the 5th century the 
vase-painters had had a monopoly of familiar and often 
trivial scenes; but now, as early as the 4th century, Leochares 
represents a slave dealer, and Lysippus a drunken female 
pipe player, while the Hellenists made any number of images 
of this kind. The high-born Greek no longer monopolized 
attention, and the humblest classes of society, the world of 
small folk, of keepers of booths, pedlars, peasants, shepherds 
and fishermen was opened to the artists in all its variety. 
The characters in the mimes of Herondas are those of familiar 
life, busybodies, slave-dealers and schoolmasters; in the 
mime of the Syracusans, Theocritus puts humble townsfolk 
on the stage, and, in his idylls, peasants and shepherds. 
Plastic art no longer despised peasants wrinkled with age, 
carrying a lamb or driving a cow to market, or noisy and 
quarrelsome street urchins.” 

Thanks, partly, to this imtermingling of social classes 
formerly quite distinct, and partly to other causes, realism, 
which had been confined to the lower orders, now invaded 
the whole of art, and we shall see its effects presently. 

Individualism, which had been seeking to break its chains 
ever since the 4th century, now triumphs. The Greek no 
longer takes an active part in the government of his country 
as he had done in his free city; hence he no longer concerns 


1 LXITI, vol. ii, pp. 321, 386; CLIX. 2 See above, p. 81. 
8 LXII, vol. ii, p. 404. 


CHANGING SOCIAL CHARACTER 113 


himself with his country’s business, and concentrates his 
attention on his private affairs. Artists and savants confine 
themselves to their arts and sciences. They keep apart from 
the herd and meet together in select circles, a custom which 
crystallized into its final form in the museum of Alexandria. 
The philosophers strengthened this tendency; whereas Plato 
and Aristotle claimed that the common life alone is good, 
their successors preached withdrawal from mundane, national 
and family interests and from all attachments which could 
restrict their personal liberty. Henceforth personal interest 
alone comes into play, doing away with the ideals of solidarity 
and patriotism. Certain forms of literature develop which 
answer to these new tendencies. These forms no longer 
treat of the collective life of a city or a people but of this 
or that individual, and biographies in particular become 
numerous. Man has become of even greater interest than the 
gods, not merely man, the hero, who vanquished barbarians 
and monsters, but ordinary man who has done nothing 
wonderful and has no other merit than that he is.: 

Hence the individualistic character of art. The artist 
puts himself at the service of private persons. He seeks 
the accidental rather than the general. Portraits become 
numerous; in every genre there is insistence on the character- 
istic detail which differentiates the models, and on the diver- 
gences in age, sex, race or environment. 

The artist has become emancipated. From the 4th 
century onward he has no longer had solely at heart the 
greatness of his city and the glory of his forbears and his 
gods; he no longer modestly joins his own efforts to those of 
all the other citizens in pursuing a common ideal. He has 
become independent and he is more concerned with producing 
a personal piece of work than in docilely following a tradition. 

The position of the artist begins to grow in dignity with 
the 4th century, and in the Hellenistic period it becomes 
higher still. Extravagant prices are paid for his work, and 
honours are heaped upon him. Princes, who show their 
enthusiasm for art by bestowing great privileges, themselves 
sometimes practise the arts, as, for instance, Attala III of 
Pergamum (198-133). Women, who now occupy themselves 
with politics, literature and science, take up painting; draw- 
ing, which had made its way into the schools in the 4th 

8 


114 ART IN GREECE 


century, now becomes a regular feature of education and 
teaches children to appreciate works of art. Hence the 
artist’s pride, which is flattered by this general interest— 
pride which is betrayed in their works only too often. 

The Greek, who now seeks his own good before the glory 
of his city, no longer possesses the old simplicity. Although 
the State no longer undertakes great artistic schemes revealing 
the soul of an entire people, luxury is on the increase among 
private persons. Funerary monuments become more and 
more sumptuous, and a degree restraining them is issued by 
Demetrius of Phalerum (317-307). Official offerings are still 
plentiful, but testify rather to the pride and fortune of the 
victor than to his gratitude to the gods. Read what Curtius 
has to say in his lively sketch of Hellenistic manners: “ Now 
they neglected everything of public utility, and building was 
only concerned with the luxury and ease of a few wealthy 
citizens. The rich made a display of their wealth out of 
vanity; Athens and its neighbourhood was covered with 
palatial dwellings. People gloried in having numbers of 
servants, sumptuous teams and equipages, and costly garments 
and furniture... .” 

Having abandoned the manly occupations of a free citizen, 
the Greek increasingly sought after pleasure. “‘ Festivals 
became the main object in life and were treated with the 
greatest gravity as though they constituted the most im- 
portant business of the community. But the noble ideas” 
which were at the root of the old Athenian festivals, such 
as grateful glorification of the gods and the enthusiastic 
cultivation of the most noble arts, were relegated to the 
background.’ 

Woman played a great part in this elegant and refined 
civilization, a part hitherto unknown. She was no longer 
limited to her domestic functions in the gynzeceum; she 
appeared at court; she interested herself practically in litera- 
ture and in the arts and sciences, and in politics. She 
dominated especially by her beauty and her sensuous attrac- 
tions. The cult of Woman dates from the Hellenistic period, 
and it was then that the earliest instances of chivalric gallantry 
appeared. 

This Hellenistic society was voluptuous. The literature 

1 Curtius’s Greek_History. 


PLATE V 


Rome) 


1 Museum, 


ito 


(Cap 


ANDROMEDA AND PERSEUS 


[face p. 114 


CHANGING SOCIAL CHARACTER § 115 


of the time abounds in erotic and often scabrous writing, and 
it did not hesitate to modify the ancient myths in this sense. 
Physical love is the basis of Alexandrian poetry. 

Woman invaded art, and in graceful form. The Aphro- 
dite of Cnidus (middle of the 4th century) is still too vigorous, 
and her nudity remains chaste, but the Hellenistic Aphro- 
dites, the Nymphs and Menads of the sculptors, and the young 
women whom the koroplastes of Myrina' love to model, 
appear sensual, of easy virtue, and provocative, rather like 
the courtesans of the period, and from their form there eman- 
ates a disturbingly voluptuous charm. Masculine gesture 
becomes gallant for their sake. Perseus assists Andromeda 
to descend from her rock in the manner of a young seigneur 
assisting a fair lady to alight from her carriage® (Pl. V.). 
_ The terra cottas of Asia Minor are sometimes over-pretty and 
affected—a coquettish young woman will be examining her 
toilette, and another turning to admire the effect of her trail- 
ing garments.* Woman excites the passions, and her naked- 
ness fans the emotions of the Hellenists. 

Olympus did not escape the backwash of this altered 
Greek mentality. To the grave and austere divinities of the 
5th century men now preferred the gods of the senses and 
passions, Aphrodite and Eros, Dionysus and his train, Satyrs 
and Mznads—subjects which permitted of the sensuous appeal 
of the bodies of women and ephebi being emphasized without 
reserve, and of the passions being stimulated. Aphrodite 
is a mortal woman, more courtesan than goddess, whose one 
concern seems to be to enhance her charms by feigning to 
veil them. Nymphs allow themselves to be caught by 
Satyrs; recumbent Hermaphrodites set themselves athrill 
in voluptuous dreaming, or delight to contemplate their 
own ambiguous forms. 

The clean-built form of the athlete is still in favour but 
no longer exclusively. Instead of making their women and 
children virile, as in the 5th century, artists now make their 
young gods effeminate, and bestow on them a soft and sen- 
sitive beauty. Praxiteles had already conceived his Apollo, 
his Eros and his Satyrs thus, and the Hellenists go further 
still. Hellenistic poetry shows a preference for delicate and 
youthful countenances with white skin and pink cheeks, and 

? CXII. 2 LXII, vol. ii, p. 571. 3 CX-CXII. 


116 ART IN GREECE 


long silken curls. Apollo comes very near to being an Herma- 
phrodite, and Eros and Dionysus become androgynous in the 
Myrina terra cottas. 

The art of the 5th century tended to bring all ages of life 
back to the ephebic ideal—children and old men, as well 
as women, shared in its vigorous qualities. Now that realism 
has asserted itself, not only does art become interested in 
the most humble social ranks, in foreigners, in women whose 
specific features it observes, but it seeks also to characterize 
the various ages of life, and in Hellenistic art children and 
old men take on the appearance which is proper to them. 

The misfortunes of the Peloponnesian war have caused the 
Greeks to lose confidence in the gods who were unable to 
save them. Under the pressure of the scepticism which 
troubled their spirit, as in all periods of social disintegration, 
they turned to new gods who stimulated the senses and the 
passions. The official religion seemed cold and impotent; 
scepticism grew, and respect for the gods vanished with the 
vanishing of belief. Myths increasingly became for the 
artists themes suited to stimulate their virtuosity and their 
wit; they emptied them of their primitive meaning, and in 
Hellenistic times they become nothing but a vast repertory 
from which artists and poets can draw, as artists and poets, 
without being at the pains to go deeply into what they no 
longer understand. Allegories, which had hitherto had a 
serious symbolic meaning which was both sincere and religious, 
are now graceful themes without any value, in which the 
ingeniousness, the subtlety and the delicacy of the a 
spirit is given full play. 

The gods who had already come close to earth in the 
4th century now descend still lower from their former high 
ideality. Hermes covers his face with ashes to frighten the 
disobedient children of his colleagues. The small Artemis, 
aged three, pays a visit to Hephestus’ smithy, sits on the 
knees of Briareus and plucks a handful of hair from his shaggy 
chest. Eros and Ganymede play at knuckle bones, and 
Cypris, in order to induce his son to enflame the heart of Medea, 
has to promise him a pretty toy. Olympus has become a 
bourgeois household. If art treats of the gods and goddesses, 
it is to despoil them of their greatness and to bring mytho- 
logical legend within the compass of the various happenings 


CHANGING SOCIAL CHARACTER 117 


of everyday existence. Aphrodite is seen at her toilet pre- 
paring for the bath; as a mother she covers Eros with kisses 
and presses him close in her arms; but she also learns to 
castigate the little rascal who crouches fearfully at her 
feet. 

The art of the 5th century was profoundly religious. Its 
supreme goal was the temple and the temple’s decoration. 
With the increase of individualism and scepticism it relin- 
quishes the exclusive service of the gods to satisfy also the 
desires of men. Following the general law of evolution, 
human activities lose their primitive religious and super- 
natural character with the passage of time, to become rational 
and humanist. The secularization of art increases from the 
4th century. Gods and the dead still receive the time- 
honoured homage, but they have no monopoly of it—the 
living also claim their share. They desire larger, more sub- 
stantial and more handsome dwellings. The many ruins 
of private houses and of Greek cities at Priene, Pergamum 
and Delos’ date only from this period. Public life calls for 
its stoas, porticoes, gymnasia and market-places to be larger, 
more sumptuous and built of handsome materials. The 
interiors are decorated with statues, statuettes, paintings, 
and small pictures. Decorative groups stand out against 
the green background in the gardens and parks. Goldsmiths’ 
work also becomes secularized and takes on a great im- 
portance. Formerly man subordinated himself to the gods; 
now he is their equal. 

In older times art had been the product of the community 
and chose subjects to be understood by all. Now that it is no 
longer supported by faith and ancestral patriotism and that 
it essays before all to be personal and original, there comes 
a break between the people and art which is now become the 
domain of the élite; like literature, it no longer expresses 
the deepest feelings of the popular soul, and, like literature, 
it often demands considerable erudition of those who would 
understand it—one of the main characteristics, this, of Hel- 
lenistic culture. Inspiration is sought in literature and in 
erudite works. Mythological legends now begin to be known 
only at second-hand, through the poets who have sung them, 
as is the case to-day. The poets are read in order to find 

1 RA, 1908, vol. i, PI. iii. 2 See above, p. 55; LVII. 


118 ART IN GREECE 


subjects, and the authors of the Anthology praise the artists 
who have faithfully followed literary descriptions. 

Incomprehensible to the public at large, art loses its moral 
and patriotic character. In former days it affirmed by its 
grandiose creations the power of the gods and of the patria, 
and the piety of its citizens. The Pergamum frieze, and 
the ex voto of Attala,’ still remind spectators of the courage 
of the Pergamenians who, under the protection of the gods, 
vanquished the Galate as the Greeks of the 6th century 
had vanquished the Persians, but these works tend more 
particularly to glorify the power of the prince who led them. 

Art, which has broken its ties with the national and 
popular life, loses its didactic character; it no longer believes 
that it has a mission. It seeks above all to please by its 
beauty, to stimulate the esthetic sense. 

The close relation between the utilitarian and the beautiful 
is slackened. From the end of the 5th century, despite the 
protestations of Socrates and of his disciples against pure art, 
works that are merely beautiful are to be distinguished from 
those which are merely useful. This dissociation is still more 
clear in the Hellenistic period, in that elegant, voluptuous 
literary and learned society which no longer saw beauty in the 
exact conformity of form with ideal, but in form alone. The 
Hellenistic poets juggle with words as virtuosi; the artists, 
likewise, too often find their ideal in skilled technique inde- 
_ pendent of the subject represented or of its utility. They came 
to think that “the difficulty overcome is itself a thing of 
beauty ”’ (Saint-Saéns), and that to please was enough. The 
theory of art for art’s sake is not a modern one; it was born 
in the Hellenistic period.” Nevertheless, as we have said 
further back, there was never to be a complete divorce be- 
tween art and the utilitarian; the Greek artist never creates 
a work whose sole aim is pleasure, esthetic emotion and 
beauty. Utility, attenuated, has changed with the changing 
social circumstances; nevertheless it continues to be adapted 
to and to serve a transformed city. 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 496. 2 VI, vol. iii, p. 446. 


PART TWO 


AGENTS FOR THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF 
ARTISTIC AIMS. GROUPS OF ARTISTS AND 
ARTISTIC PERSONALITIES 


Tue aim of Greek art having been ascertained we shall now 
study those agents for its practical application, the artists. 
Before we sum up the general features common to them all in 
that they were all Hellenes, we shall examine the variations 
comprehended in this unity and analyze the differences in 
spirit due to ethnic origin, social and geographical environ- 
ment and personality. We shall take these points in the 
following order: 


1. Ethnic groups; 
2. Regional and local groups; 
3. Artistic individualities. 


119 


CHAPTER I 
ETHNIC GROUPS 


DIsTINCTIVE tendencies are to be discerned within the very 
real unity of Greek art, tendencies which are at times sharply 
indicated and at others are blended. 

The three ethnic groups of Ionians, Dorians, and Attics 

which constitute the Greek nation each contribute a distinct 
note whose persistence can be recognized throughout the 
history of Greek art. 
- ‘he brilliant A®Xgean civilization of Crete and the Pelo- 
ponnese completely collapsed under the assaults of the 
Dorian peoples towards the 11th century B.c. A new world 
arose which was inspired with quite a new spirit'—the world 
of Hellenic Greece. 

The Dorians,* coming from the North, occupied central 
Greece, crossed the isthmus and settled in the Peloponnese. 
Soon the whole of Greece, apart from a few districts such as 
mountainous Arcadia, became subject to them. Arrived at 
the sea, they embarked upon it and proceeded to conquer 
the islands which link the Peloponnese with Asia—Cythera, 
Crete, and Rhodes—and established themselves in the southern 
portion of Asia Minor which thenceforward bore their name 
—Doris. The isthmus of Corinth prevented them from reach- 
ing the Attic peninsula, and their subsequent efforts to 
conquer it were in vain. Attica, spared as a result of the 
legendary sacrifice of King Codrus, preserved its old inhabi- 
tants. Athens the hospitable, far from Central Greece and 
the Peloponnese, welcomed those who fied before the invasion, 


and this blend of the old populations was to form the Attic | 


nation. ‘Those who had been banished moved on further. 
Leaving the ports of Attica and Eubcea, under the leadership 
of their chieftains, they went eastward, landing on the coasts 


1 See in this series Jardé’s Formation of the Greek People. 
2 Neubert, Die dorische Wanderung, Stuttgart, 1920; S. Casson, 
*“The Dorian Invasion Reviewed,” The Antiquarian Journal, 1921, 


p. 199. 
121 


122 ART IN GREECE 


of Asia Minor, and in their turn conquering the earlier pos- 
sessors; they founded Afolis and Ionia, the latter destined, 
with her wealthy cities, to become the most powerful of the 
Greek states on Asiatic soil. This flux of populations, which 
continued for some time, appears to have come to an end to- 
wards the 10th century s.c. From that time forward the 
Hellenic nation was a constituted entity with its own charac- 
teristics. Whether Dorians, Attics or Ionians, all were 
Greeks, united by the ties of language and religion, and even 
of race, because the Dorian invaders were nothing but a 
restricted caste dominating the old population which pre- 
served the same age-old traditions that were kept up in Attica 
and Ionia.* | 

Nevertheless, the irreducible antagonism between Dorians 
on the one hand and Ionians and Attics on the other dated 
from this period, and was to be the cause of many later dissen- 
sions, leading to the bloody Peloponnesian war which brought 
about the downfall of a free Greece. The Athenians knew that 
they were of different blood; they even forbade the Dorians 
access to their national sanctuary, the Acropolis; they called 
to mind their common origin with the Ionians to whom 
religious and political ties bound them. Had not the de- 
scendants of the kings of Attica led the emigrants to Ionia, 
and did not one of the laws of the Ionian Amphictyony lay 
it down that each federated city must be governed by a 
descendant of Codrus ? In the Peloponnesian war the Greek 
world was divided into two ethnic camps of Peloponnesian 
Dorians, and Ionians of Athens, the islands and the Asiatic 
coast. Thucydides constantly emphasizes this racial differ- 
ence; the proud Dorians were continually recalling their 
ancient supremacy.” “* Dorians,” said Brasidas, “‘ you go to 
fight the Ionians of whom you have ever been the conquerors ”’; 
and the Corinthians expressed surprise that the Potidzans, 
native Dorians, should be besieged by Ionians ‘“ which is the 
reverse of what used to be in former times.” . 

This diversity of origin explains the artistic differences 
dividing these groups. Fundamental in nature, they were 
accentuated by geographical and social conditions. The 
Dorians, a warrior caste living uneasily in the midst of a 


1 See below, p. 140. 
2 Deonna, Guerre du Péloponnése et guerre mondiale, 1928, p. 48. 


, ola Tae 


ETHNIC GROUPS 123 


conquered population, were obliged to maintain their ancient 
warlike virtues unimpaired in-order to insure their predomin- 
ance in the peninsula. Disdainful of manual labour, they 
left commerce, industry and the arts to their subjects. They 
were enemies of the sea and their policy was continental. 
The Ionians, on the contrary, living as they did on a narrow 
strip of coastal territory and inhabiting towns which were 
the termini of important lines of communication with the 
interior along which flowed the wealth of Asia Minor and 
Mesopotamia, were traders, navigators and industrial pro- 
ducers, and, being in contact with Asiatic states, they came 
to adopt the ideas and the taste of the Orient. The Attics, 
whose peninsula is cut up and infertile, early turned to the 
commerce and industry of the sea for their livelihood. Mid- 
way between the Peloponnese and Ionia, between Ionian 
softness and Dorian dourness, they profited by what each 
could offer them, reconciled their opposing tendencies, and 
by this judicious balance achieved intellectual and artistic 
supremacy. 


CHAPTER II 
IONIAN ART? 


How brilliant was Ionian civilization up to the time when 
Persia conquered the kingdom of Lydia (546)? whose 
prosperous vassal Ionia had become! The twelve federated 
cities, especially the three leading ones, Ephesus, Miletus and 
Phocis, grew wealthy through their overland and maritime 
trade, and extended their power, founding in the north 
trading bases on the Thracian coasts, along the shores of the 
Hellespont and the Euxine as far as the furthest point of the 
Sea of Azov;* in the south they established settlements at 
the Nile mouths which had been thrown open to them by 
the phil-Hellenic pharaohs Psammetichus (666-612) and 
Amasis (570); and in the west they ventured as far afield as 
Corsica, Gaul and even Spain. The products of their industry 
found thetr way everywhere. ‘‘In the middle of the 6th 
century” says Curtius, “ Miletus, the mother of eighty 
colonies, was the proudest and most powerful of ae Hellenic 
cities.’ 


Their intellectual flight was no less sone than their - 


economic expansion was widespread. Science and literature 
blossomed in Ionia when continental Greece, when Athens, 
even, was still of no account in the history of science and the 
arts. It was here that the main branches of Greek learning 
were built up—mathematics and astronomy by Thales of 
Miletus, geography by Anaximander of Miletus, philosophy 
by Xenophanes of Colophon, Pherecydes and Pythagoras 
of Samos, elegy by Callinus of Ephesus, lyric poetry by 
Simonides of Amorgus, by Terpander, Alczeus, Sapho of 
Lesbos, Mimnermus of Smyrna, and Anacreon of Teos, 
morals by Phocylides of Miletus, history by the logographers 
and Hecateeus, and fable by Atsop. 

1 CCIX-X ; CCXII-III; LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 252; CXLIV, vol. ix, 
p. 897; CXLV, vol. ii, p. 486 ; LXXVIII, p. 168. 


2 COXIII. 
3 CCOXX-I; Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 1918. 


124 


* 
; 
4 
a 


IONIAN ART 125 


It was here that Greek art began its conquests as it 
emerged from the Hellenic medieval age, a period of barbarism 
following the Dorian invasion. In the 8th and 7th centuries 
Ionia is already in the full flood of her artistic activity. 
Greek texts give us a glimpse of this prosperity and preserve 
the memory of a number of artists who made their country 
illustrious. There was the painter Bularchus, whose picture 
was purchased by Candaulus, king of Lydia, at the end of the 
8th century; and the bronze-workers and goldsmiths, Glaucus 
of Chios, who is said to be the inventor of the art of soldering 
metals and the author of a crater sent to Delphi towards the 
year 605 by the Lydian king Alyattes, and Theodorus of 
Samos, who makes a crater given in 548 to Delphi by Croesus 
and a golden vine with grapes of emerald. Among the sculp- 
tors were the illustrious family at Chios whose successive 
representatives in the 6th century were Micciades, Archermus, 
Bupalus and Athenis. Sumptuous works of art of clever 
technique pour into the Ionian sanctuaries and are despatched 
to Greece by the Lydian Mermnade, Gyges (687-652), Alyattes 
(610-561) and Croesus (561-546), who were anxious to con- 
ciliate and win the favour of the gods of the Hellenes for 
their political enterprises.’ Private persons rivalled one 
another in luxury, and Koleus, about the year 630, conse- 
crates a bronze crater in the Hereeum at Samos to com- 
memorate his bold voyage to the columns of Hercules. 

The monuments bear even more striking witness to this 
fruitful activity than the texts. There were painted vases” 
in the metropolitan and colonial workshops, at Miletus, 
Samos, Rhodes, Naucratis and Cyrene whose exact pro- 
venance it is often difficult to determine; and statues and 
statuettes, reliefs and industrial objects in stone, bronze and 
terra cotta from the same centres, and especially from the 
flourishing schools of Miletus, Chios and Samos.’ They are 
frequently found very far from their place of manufacture 
—in the north in the Crimea,* in the south in Egypt, and in 
the west in Italy, Gaul and Spain, brought over by the 
maritime route and then introduced far into the interior by 
overland trade routes—the Graechwyl vase (7th century), 
which is adorned with the Asiatic Potnia Theron, bears 


1 CCXITI. . 2? CXLYV, vol. ii, p. 486; CXLIV, vol. ix, p. 877. 
3 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 252 4 COXX-I. 


126 ART IN GREECE 


me 


witness to this expansion having extended even to the heart 
of present-day Switzerland. At the same time architects 
were building the great temples at Samos, Ephesus and 
Miletus. 

Ionia, which awakened first to art, gave continental 
Greece fruitful teaching that facilitated progress. It not only 
gave themes, motifs and technical processes, but esthetic 
principles which were to persist long after its own artistic 
predominance had vanished. Its effects were felt in cera- 
mics, in the industrial arts of Corinth and Attica, and in 
plastic art, which in Athens from 560 docilely followed 
the Ionian lead? and whose native harshness in the Pelo- 
ponnese was mellowed by this beneficial contact. It can 
be said that the main fact of Greek archaism up to the close 
of the 6th century is the predominance of Tonianism and 
of its influence on other Greek centres. For the ethnic 
antagonism indicated a few pages further back had not yet 
found an echo in art; on the contrary, the Peloponnesian 
workshops of the 6th century welcomed this influence.° 

What, then, are the characteristic features of this Ionian 
art and what exactly is its share in Greek art as a whole ? 

Two main causes contributed to give it its special charac- 
ter—the Aigean tradition, and contact with the Kast. Ionia, 
thanks to the origin of its inhabitants and to the environ- 
ment in which its population had developed, was heir to the 
artistic heritage of the civilization which had flourished 
before the Dorian invasion, and its art is a survival and a 
kind of renaissance of Mycenean art. It was not merely 
that many ornamental motifs and themes survived but that 
artistic tendencies persisted, such, for instance, as the taste 
for naturalism and for floral decoration treated, not in abstract 
and geometric fashion as in continental Greece, but with 
truth; and the taste for violent movement and intense life.* 

The Ionians, living, as they did, at the termini of the 
caravan routes which brought merchandise across Asia 
Minor from Cappadocia and the Mesopotamian East, and 
having maritime relations with the Mediterranean and with 
the coasts of Phoenicia, Syria and Egypt, received much, 
likewise, from these ancient civilizations, and it was they 


1 LXXXVI, vol. ii, pp. 320, 2. 2 LXXVIII, p. 188. 
3 CCXI. 4 CXLY, vol. ii, p. 503; VI, vol. iii, p. 107. 


IONIAN ART 127 


who introduced into Greek art that Oriental note perceptible 
in the ceramics and industry of the 8th and 7th centuries. 
For instance, motifs such as the lotus flower and leaf, the 
palmette, ferocious beasts like lions—isolated or fighting 
with bulls—fantastic creatures such as the Chimera—doubt- 

less of Hittite origin—and men with the heads of hares. And 
also certain features of style such as the thick-set proportions 
of human beings—of Assyrian inspiration—the nervousness 
of complete nudity—which had already been shown by thé 
Aigeans and which is repugnant to all Orientals—and a 
preference for drapery. Further, certain technical processes 
such as hollow bronze casting, borrowed from Egypt by 
the Samians Theodorus and Rheecus. It was in imitation 
of Oriental carpets that the potters covered their vases with 
designs as though with a woven and richly polychrome net- 
work, All these contributions, and many others, too, opened 
up new perspectives to the Ionian artists who adopted them 
to Hellenic taste before they gave them to the rest of Greece. 

These two traits, Aigean survivals and Oriental influence, 
united with the qualities proper to the Ionians, were never 
to be lost by Greek art; restrained during the classic period 
of the 5th century, they blossomed out in the Hellenistic 
period when Greek art flowed back towards the old centres 
in Asia Minor and renewed the link with the East broken 
since the time of the Persian wars. 

The Ionians’ share in the building up of the common 
patrimony of Greek art is considerable. It was they who 
initiated artists into the knowledge of the two chief plastic 
materials, marble and bronze, which were to serve hence- 
forth for all works which it was desired should be beautiful 
and carefully executed and for which limestone, so full of 
defects, and over-ductile clay, were abandoned. Up till 
then bronze, outside its employment in industry, was used 
only for casting heavy solid figurines, which such a process 
condemned to small size. Hollow casting, borrowed from 
Egypt by Rheecus and Theodorus of Samos, henceforth 
permitted the conception of large light statues in which 
only a minimum of metal was employed, and authorized freer 
poses impossible in stone. If we recall that the greater part 
of the classic masterpieces were bronzes and that some of 

1 VI, vol. iii, p. 107. 


128 ART IN GREECE 


the best artists, Myron, Polyclitus and Lysippus, were 
bronze-workers, we shall understand the enormous importance 
of this gain. And if the Peloponnesian studios preferred 
this material even to marble for representing athletes, it 
is to be remembered that they owed the technique to their 
enemies, the Ionians. 

Continental Greece, other than Attica, is poor in statuary 
marble, but the islands possess rich beds, and the marble of 
Naxos, and especially of Paros, surpasses in beauty that of 
Hymettus or Pentelicus.* The crude island image-makers of 
the eneolithic civilization of the Cyclades had already carved 
their funerary idols in marble; and later on the Aigean 
sculptors used it for the lion heads of Knossos and Delphi. 
But it belonged to the Ionians to understand and to make 
others understand the esthetic value of this material, It 
renewed architecture. Byzes, a Naxian, replaced the old 
terra cotta temple tiles by tiles of marble from his isle. His 
example was followed, although the old process was kept up 
even in the 5th century, to the time of the Parthenon. The 
practice of carving the details of the higher portions of a 
building in marble (metopes of the Hekatompedos, first quarter 
of the 6th century) was begun. In 536-525 the Alemzonidee 
built the facade of the temple of Apollo at Delphi of Parian 
marble; and it was of marble that the Pisistratidz, their 
jealous rivals, made the sculptured entablatures, friezes and 
pediments of the Hekatompedos in Athens which was trans- 
formed about 520. Although limestone is still used for 
important buildings in the first half of the 5th century (temples 
of Aégina and Olympia), one realizes, nevertheless, that marble - 
is coming to be regarded as the most handsome material for 
architecture, not only for the details of ornament, such as 
pediments, metopes, gargoyles, and cymas, but for the 
building as a whole, and the buildings of Pericles’ Acropolis— 
the Parthenon, the temple of Athena Nike, and the Propylea 
—are an “ideal crystallized in Pentelic marble.”’ 

The Ionians appreciated in statuary the beauty of marble 
with its homogeneous grain and smooth surfaces which are so 
well suited to represent the human body, more especially 
the soft and delicate tissues of woman; they know that its 
hardness not only insures a longer life to the work of art 

1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 141. 


IONIAN ART 129 


but enjoins on the artist less hasty and more detailed and 
exact work than limestone demands, causing him to study 
form with closer attention. They carve, with consummate 
knowledge of the resources of marble, statues of Korai,? 
young women elegantly dressed, covered with jewels and 
embroideries, and the naked bodies of Kouroi.2, Thanks to 
them we know that the choice of material in a work of art is 
important in itself, having its own beauty which can be 
adapted more or less harmoniously to the 
subject. Polychromy, necessary in order to 
hide the imperfections of limestone, com- 
pleted the statues; toned down, it softened 
the whiteness of marble to a flesh tint by 
a light ‘‘ganosis.”’*? It became increasingly 
clear that materials have their specific quali- 
ties, demanding different treatment. All this 
the Greeks owed to the Ionians, who put them 
on the right road. 

The Ionian artist created typical forms. 
He made fashionable the costume of the 
Korai—a long short-sleeved linen chiton 
which was caught up in the hand, and a hima- 
tion which crossed the chest obliquely—a 
costume full of grace, made more elegant by 
its embroideries, and falling into light, close 
folds, bespeaking a very different spirit from 
that shown by the severe Dorian chiton. De’ eee a Yokes 
adopted the long, narrow stele known as Ionic, corumNn oF 
surmounted by an acroterium in the formofa THE TEMPLE 

, j : oF EPHESUS 
palmette which held the single image of the = ¢py cenrury, 
dead, standing erect. In architecture, the 
Ionic order* has a good title to that name, because it 
was an Ionian creation formed partly from old Mycenzan 
elements and partly from elements borrowed from the Kast. 
Elegance and luxury are more sought after in it than 
strength, and are evident in the general proportions and 
in the slenderness of the columns and the graceful volutes 
of the capitals (Fig. 4). Its ornamentation is not limited, 


1 LXXVII-IX. 3 2 LXVIIL 
8 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 211; LXXVIII, p. 316. 
‘ XLVI-LII; XXXVI, p. 91; JDAT, 1920, 15, p. 1 ff. 
9 


130 ART IN GREECE 


as in the Doric, to the frames of the metopes and pedi- 
ments, but there are mouldings, palmettes, rais de cour, 
and beads without number, and even the bases of the 
capitals are sculptured (Ephesus, 6th century). The plan is 
not so rigorous as in the Doric; there is a certain easy-going 


Fic. 5. Primitive Ionic Fic. 6. PRIMITIVE IONIC 
CAPITAL (DELOs). CAPITAL (ATHENS). 
nonchalance in the long frieze which runs as far as the building 
can carry it and whose prolixity contrasts with the rigid 
alternation of the Doric triglyphs and metopes—all so many 
traits characterizing this order and betokening a different 
spirit from that animating continental Greece. At the end of 
the 6th century the Ionic order is definitely constituted. The 


Fic. 7. CAPITAL OF THE COLUMN Fic. 8. Arcwuaic IONIC 
oF THE NAXIANS (DELPHI), CAPITAL (DELOS). 6TH 
6TH CENTURY. CENTURY. 


capital has developed and the examples found on the Acro- 
polis in Athens and at Delos give it in almost its final form.’ 
The volutes, formerly separated, with an almost vertical stem, 
are united in an elegant curve tending towards the horizontal 
(Figs. 5-9). 

1 (CX; LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 321. 2 XXXVI, p. 100. 


IONIAN ART 131 


Greece is not yet completely conquered, however. Born 
in Ionia, this order is confined to that region. The 6th-century 
continental artists undergo Jonian influence and carve isolated 
capitals which terminate the pedestals of statues, and crown 
their funerary stele with volutes (example: Hoplitodromus 
stele, Athens).t The architects of the Hekatompedon trans- 
formed by the Pisistratidz at the end of the 6th century adopt 
the principle of the continuous frieze—if it be true that the 
fragments of reliefs in the Acropolis museum, of which the 
most beautiful shows a man in a chariot and the bust of 
Hermes,” belong to a frieze that ran round the cella of the 
peripteral Doric temple, and which frieze would thus be a 
prototype of that of the Panathenea. But these are only 
details. The Doric, though it was already influenced, still 
reigned supreme on the conti- 
ment, » Ihe Treasury of. the 
Siphnians, that Ionic gem of the 
second half of the 6th century 
at Delphi,* does not constitute 
an exception because it was 
built by Ionian architects for an 
insular Greek city the affinities 
of whose art were with Asiatic 
Greece. We have to wait till : 
the second half of the 5th cen. ete eee ee uwacne 
tury to see the Ionic order win 
its citizenship in Greece proper. It achieved this pro- 
gressively, thanks to Phidias and his collaborators. The 
Parthenon, begun in 447 and completed in 431, but inaugurated 
in the year 438, already betrays a certain yielding in the Doric 
spirit, because the Ionian influence‘ is manifest in the presence 
of the frieze round the cella, in the more abundant and 
luxurious ornament of palmettes, cyma, and rows of bead 
on the border of the metopes, and in the number of the 
columns of the fagade—eight instead of the six ordinarily 
present in a Doric temple. 

This still weak influence is definitely shown almost simul- 
taneously in a neighbouring building. In the Propylea 


1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 649. 2 Ibid., p. 652. 
y “aie vol. viii, p. 363; Bourguet, Les ruines de Delphes, p. 65. 


132 ART IN GREECE 


(487-482) Mnesicles associates two rows of interior Ionic 
columns with the Doric columns of the fagade, and the two 
systems of construction are now juxtaposed. Still hidden in 
the interior, the Ionic order is employed for the first time 
overtly and alone in the small amphiprostyle temple of Athena 
Nike, built about 435. Finally the Erechtheum (420-407) 
testifies that it has been definitely accepted by Greek architects 
for a big architectural scheme. It now becomes the successful 
rival of the Doric. More elegant, more luxurious, it responds 
better to the new needs of luxury and wealth which appear 
from the close of the 5th century. It was to multiply its 
effects until the time came when it found a rival, in its turn, 
in the Corinthian capital,1 which was more deeply sculptured 
and still more luxurious (Fig. 19). Created in the second half 
of the 5th century, possibly by Callimachus, this was at first 
hidden in the interior (temple at Phigalia, about 420; tholos 
at Epidaurus, first quarter of the 4th century), and it was not 
used in complete ensembles, which were at first restrained, 
till the second half of the 4th century (monument of Lysi- 
crates, 335-4), to come into its own in the Greco-Roman 
period. For the rest, it does not constitute an order, strictly 
speaking; it is simply a variant of the Ionic capital which had 
no repercussion on the system of proportions of the building. 
There are only two orders in Greece, each responding to one 
of the main tendencies of the Greek spirit, the one strong, 
severe and virile, the other graceful, charming and more 
feminine. Adopted by continental Greece, the Ionic influenced 
the Doric and transmitted to it some of itselements. We have 
noted this in the Parthenon and in the Propylea. The 
principle of the frieze is also applied to the Hephesteum 
(called the Theseum, 437-432, exterior frieze), to the temple 
at Cape Sunium, and to the temple at Phigalia (about 420) 
built by the architect of the Parthenon, Ictinus. The latter 
unites within itself three conceptions, for though the en- 
semble is Doric, there is an Ionic colonnade in the interior, 
and an Ionic frieze, and even a single Corinthian capital, the 
earliest example known. The three types are grouped in a 
skilful hierarchy, which corresponds well with chronology: 
the Doric is still supreme, but the Ionic has invaded the 
interior, and the Corinthian is preparing for its future conquest. 
1 LITI-V ; JDAI, 1921, 36, p. 44. 


IONIAN ART 138 


Conversely, Ionic, when it came into contact with Doric, 
took from it certain principles, more particularly its regularity 
of plan which henceforward becomes common to both orders. 

One motif that was destined to come into favour and is 
known later as a ‘‘ Caryatid’’*—that which employs a woman's 
form as an architectural support—was created in Ionia; 
the beautiful Korai of the Erechtheum (towards 415) had as 
their ancestresses the Caryatid 
at Tralles (about 450),? those 
of the treasuries of Cnidus 
and of Siphnus at Delphi 
(6th century),® and the small 
figures which support the 
archaic fountain basins of 
Ionian style. The masculine 
Doric genius, whose massive 
columns stripped of all orna- 
ment betoken a geometrical 
spirit, would never have con- 
ceived this elegant feminine 
column. 

The continuous Ionic frieze 
contrasts with the alternation 
of the Doric triglyphs and 
metopes. The temple at Assos 
(6th century)* may already 
unite the two principles, but 
we have to wait till the second , 
half of the 5th century and Fic.10. FUNERARY STELE ON AN 
the coming of the buildings Arric Lecyruus oF THE 5TH 
already mentioned before we CENTURY. THE TERMINAL Ac- 
. ANTHUS FORESHADOWS THE COM- 
see sculptural decoration re- te or THE CoRINTHIAN CAPITAL. 
sorting to both simultaneously 
in the same building, though with a different disposition— 
that is to say, when the Doric and Ionic begin to blend. 
These two elements, indeed, issue from a different spirit. 
The Doric frieze,® which Zigean art had already inaugurated, 


1 XLVII; JDAI, 1920, 35, p. 118. 2 MP, x, 1903, PI. ii-iii. 

3 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 385; Bourguet, Les ruines de Delphes, p. 66. 
* LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 256; Sartiaux, RA, 1913-14. 

5 XXXIX-XLV. . 


134 ART IN GREECE 


perfectly expresses the Dorian spirit in love with symmetry, 
regularity and rhythmical alternation, and liking a limited 
field. The principle of the metope is not special to archi- 
tecture; vase-painting early uses this rectangular field in 
which the elements of the subject can be inscribed with logic 
and clarity. The Ionians preferred, on their temples and on 
the bodies of their vases, a long band on which the motifs all 
go the same way in a long indefinite procession;* doubtless 
they borrowed this from the East, because it is the decorative 
principle of Egypt, Chaldea, Assyria, and the Hittites. It 
suited their somewhat prolix and discursive spirit which 
leisurely sets out endless histories on these bands instead of 
condensing them, as the continentals do, in a few clear-cut 
scenes and concise actions. The artists of the 5th and 4th 
centuries will make a masterpiece of it when they come to 
order their composition with greater rigour—for example, 
in the Panathenaic frieze and those of the Theseum, the 
temples of Phigalia, Athena Nike, Trysa, the monument of 
the Nereids, and the Mausoleum; the Hellenistic sculptors of 
Pergamum, heirs of the Ionians on their own soil, unwind the 
Gigantomachy and the history of Telephus, and, later on, 
the Roman artist is to find in the frieze the happy possibility 
of singing the exploits of his history. 

To the Ionians belongs the honour of having first approached 
the problem of drapery. They understood its beauty of which 
the East was ignorant and which continental Greece had not 
yet perceived; instead of treating it as a rigid carapace they 
multiplied its folds; they studied it in its relation to the figure, 
and they sought to render its transparency; finally, they 
realized that each must have its proper value and be united 
in a balanced harmony. True, the results were not yet 
perfect, but at least they had caught a glimpse of its various 
esthetic necessities. | | 

They had a feeling for the beauty of the human form 
which they rendered, not with the brutal strength of the 
Dorians, but with delicacy and sensuous appreciation. What 
a difference there is between the insular Kouroi? with their 
elegant and occasionally precious form (Kouroi at Melos and 
Tenea, 6th century) and those of Polymedes of Argos (6th 
century), sometimes known as ‘‘ burden bearers ’’; between 


1 LIX. 2 LXVIII. 


IONIAN ART 135 


the Korai of the Acropolis (6th century), dainty and delicate,’ 
and the heavy Athena of the metope at Selinus (6th century) !? 
The musculature may be wanting in precision, the skeleton 
in firmness, and the flesh may be soft and plump, but the 
silhouette is generally graceful and pleasing to the eye. 

This human form that they appreciated was more especially 
the form of woman. Ionian civilization, brilliant and sensuous, 
softened by contact with the Orient, preferred gentle and 
peaceable forms to the more robust and angular form of man. 

The Ionian spirit communicated to Greek art the instinc- 
tive feeling for grace, elegance and charm which the Dorians 
lacked. It is revealed in the poses with their occasionally 
somewhat mannered and affected gesture, in the arrangement 
of the many fine folds of drapery which ripple over the bodies 
of the Korai, in anatomical details such as hands with slender 
fingers, sometimes a trifle curved at the tips, the slender 
arched foot, and the soft modelling of the statues which avoids 
the hard and angular plane surfaces so common in Pelopon- 
nesian sculpture, and which is often a veritable caress for 
the eyes.® 

The Ionian spirit inspired Greek art with the desire to 
please, to be smiling and gracious. It seeks a pleasant 
expression, turning up the corners of the mouth and eyes, and 
the “‘ archaic smile,’”’ sometimes exaggerated and artificially 
amiable, soon came to light up with its gaiety even the 
melancholy Peloponnesian countenances. It brought poly- 
chromy into vase-painting—doubtless necessary in order to 
translate approximately the vivid colours of the carpets and 
embroideries imitated by the potters, but also responding 
to this native gaiety. Black, white, brown, red, yellow and 
blue make bright patches on the pale slip of the pot, and this 
bright note which the Corinthians tried to imitate was in strong 
contrast with the sombre colours of the Attic vases.* 

The realism which the Ionians seem to have inherited from 
the Aigeans is attested by numerous details and by a closer 
observation of life than is to be found in continental Greece.° 
The sculptor, instead of carving the eye as an almond, indicates 
the conjunctival sac at the internal angle; he does not leave 
the upper lid absolutely smooth when the eye is open, but 

1 LXXVII-IX. 2% LXXXIV, vol. viii, p.487. ° LXXVIII, p. 339. 
* CXLIV, vol. ix, p. 440. 5 OXLYV, vol. ii, pp. 507-11. 


\ 


136 ART IN GREECE 


incises a small fold on it. The continental vase-painters 
differentiate man from woman by the shape of the eyes, 
round for men and oval for women; the Ionians, more exact, 
avoid this convention for the same reason that they paint the 
skin of both men and women white, because the continental 
contrast of black and white is not true to nature. 

The Ionians preserved the Augean love of nature when 
continental Greece, under the Dorian influence, eliminated 
everything that was not human, and it has been said that they 
were the “landscape artists of antiquity.’ When this note 
appears sporadically in the Attic art of the 5th century, 
especially in pottery, and when, at the end of the 4th century, 
the uniform background of reliefs begins to carry picturesque 
details, it is, in fact, a renaissance of this old spirit. 

The violent action and the impetuosity of the composition 
on the Ionian vases and reliefs has often been remarked; this 
desire for life inspired the sculptor Archermus of Chios in his 
flying Nike, posed in the attitude of the archaic runner, 
ancestress of the beautiful Nike of Paonius of Mende, also 
an Ionian; it foreshadows the effort to represent action in the 
red-figure pottery, the reliefs, and the statuary of the 5th 
century. 

These features persist throughout Greek art. The Ionian 
spirit did not die with the fall of independent Ionia and with 
the artistic dominance of Peloponnesian ideas at the beginning 
of the 5th century. It was maintained in the later works 
of Ionian provenance such as the reliefs of the herdéon at 
Trysa (end of the 5th century), and the reliefs and statues 
of the Nereids’ monument at Zanthus (end of 5th or begin- 
ning of 4th century). The good qualities and the faults 
of the Ionians are to be seen in these monuments—a flowing, 
superficial, prolix and discursive style which wanders over 
long friezes, but that is also graceful, delicate, informed 
with a sense of the picturesque and full of realistic detail 
observed from life contrasting with the abstract quality of 
continental art, of the love of violent action, and of drapery 
in movement, billowing and fluttering in the wind and allow- 
ing the body to be seen through its transparency. In Greece 
proper, artists of Ionian extraction keep up this tradition. 
Peonius of Mende finally solves the problem of transparent 

1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 202. * Ibid., p. 216. 


IONIAN ART 137 


and flowing drapery on a body in action in his beautiful Nike 
at Olympia (towards 423). Agoracritus, in Phidias’ entourage, 
is a native of Paros. Attic artists, such as Calamis and Calli- 
machus, are related to the Ionians by their efforts after grace 
and delicacy, and the mysterious smile of the Sosandra of 
Calamis is a dim reflection of the old smile of the Korai. The 
Doric Parthenon makes concessions to Ionian elegance, and 
Phidias or Ictinus gives it, by way of ornament, the sculptured 
band of the continuous frieze.‘ And in the pediments the 
marvellous statues of draped women in transparent chitons, 
the ‘* Parce,”’ Iris, and the Nike, are the culminating point 
of long years of effort by the Ionian sculptors. Wall-painting 
in the hands of Polygnotus of Thasos and vase-painting 
in the 5th century likewise assimilated much that came from 
Greece in Asia. 

In the 4th century Praxiteles is the sculptor of woman 
and of delicate youthful bodies; in order to translate their 
tender and sensuous forms he resorts to the caressing surface 
of white and translucent marble rather than to bronze; to the 
lips of his Satyr in repose he gives a gentle smile; and it has 
been justly said that the rarer qualities of his technique 
are traceable to his Ionian predecessors. Scopas of Paros, 
who was to bring new life to plastic art by importing emotion 
into his attitudes and faces, realizes the goal to which the 
Ionian art of the 6th century had already been tending. 

Finally, Hellenistic art, which abandons Greece proper to 
flow back towards the great centres of Greece in Asia, once 
more gives free rein to tendencies which the classical art 
of the 5th century had repressed; which explains a great 
deal of its particular character and the many analogies it 
presents with Ionian art in the 6th century, and also with 
ancient Aigean art.” It finds again on Asiatic soil the qualities 
which had never been lost and which, thanks to a finer 
technique, will be expressed with new precision—poignant 
realism, exuberant and violent action, and feeling for nature 
and historic truth. The Hellenistic period, it has been 
justly said (Willamowitz-Moellendorf), ‘‘ was really nothing 
but a continuation of Ionianism.”’ 

Archaistic art® copies the works of the 6th century which 


1 XL. 2 VI, vol. iii, pp. 61, 107. 
3 LXII, vol. ii, p. 643; XCII. 


138 ART IN GREECE 


are pleasing to it not only because of their antiquity but in 
the mannerism of their gesture and smiles, and the clever 
conventional folds of their drapery; the form and style dear 
to the Ionians persists in this archaistic art. 

Ionianism, then, is one of the elements in Greek art which 
lasts as long as it does itself. The expression of the amiable 
people of Greece in Asia, it likewise responds at all times to 
certain artistic temperaments, and certain periods whole- 
heartedly enamoured of grace, delicacy, realism and the 
picturesque. Doubtless it has its faults; it sacrifices too 
much to detail, to decoration, to the luxury of ornament and 
the minutiz of hair and drapery; it slurs over any study of 
anatomy, and the body is too often plump and boneless; 
sometimes it is guilty of mannerism and over-prettiness; 
it is prolix and wanting in the Dorian conciseness. Greece, 
when it went to the school of Ionianism, yet had the intelli- 
gence to select only what might prove profitable and to 
reject all that was exaggerated. Greek art owes it a great 
deal—forms, subjects, new processes come from the Kast, 
the use of marble and bronze and the judicious knowledge 
of their properties and their technique, together with the 
esthetic study of drapery, the comprehension of human 
beauty and especially the beauty of woman, the feeling for 
grace, sensuousness and softness and the taste for realism 
which struggles successfully against the tendency of con- 
tinental Greece to be too schematic and abstract. 

Without denying the great influence which Ionia exerted 
on the Greek spirit and on Greek art, we must recognize that 
other influences also made themselves felt and that these were 
necessary in order to counterbalance the others and to 
give to Greek art the harmony of perfect equilibrium. Any 
exclusive thesis would be false because it would not take into 
account the complexity of the phenomena. It is an exag- 
geration to see the exclusive mark of Ionian genius in all 
the archaic work of the 6th century; ‘‘ pan-Ionianism”’ is 
as unwarranted as ‘‘ pan-Babylonianism,”’ “‘ pan-Elamism,”’ 
the ‘“‘ Augean mirage,” or as the one-time ‘‘ Hindu mirage ”’ 
or ‘Oriental mirage.’’ The Ionians have a sufficiently 
goodly share in this art to render it unnecessary that it 
should be exaggerated. 


CHAPTER III 
DORIAN ART? 


FLOURISHING though Ionia was, the Peloponnese from the 
8th to the 6th century had prosperous studios? in the great 
cities of Corinth under the Bacchiade and Cypselide (627- 
629), of Argos, Sicyon and Sparta which played an im- 
portant political rdle, whose commerce (with the exception 
of Sparta) rivalled that of the Ionians, and which founded 
distant colonies and exported the products of their industrial 
arts, more especially their pottery and worked metals. 
Corinth and Sicyon even wrongly prided themselves on 
having invented painting and on having seen its earliest 
progress, in the time of Craton, Cleanthes and Aregon. 

If we go into the relative correctness of the terms ‘‘ Ionian 
art’ and “‘ Dorian art,” in so far as they are the expression 
of two ethnic groups, we cannot but recognize that the artistic 
products of archaic Greece reveal, according to the place of 
their origin, two very distinct tendencies. The field of 
expansion of Ionianism is Greece in Asia, the islands, and the 
countries reached by Ionian trade; on the other hand, those 
which originate from districts under Dorian domination, 
such as the Peloponnese, Crete, Sicily, and Grecia Magna, 
present undeniable affinities with one another of a quite 
different character; for example, the torso of Eleutherna, 
the goddess of Prinias and the figurines of Preesus, in Crete; 
the torso of Tegea, the Agemo statue, the Chrysapha relief, 
and the Kouroi of Polymedes of Argos, in the Peloponnese; 
and the metopes of Selinus in Sicily* present a contrast with 
the statues of the Branchidez and of Samos, and the insular 
Kouroi and Korai. The vase-painting of continental Greece 
differs, in special features, from that of oriental Greece even 
when it is inspired from thence, as in the case of Corinth.’ 

? CCXI. 2 LXXXIYV, vol. viii, p. 436; CXLIV, vol. ix, p. 569. 

3 See, for these monuments, LXXXIV, vol. viii, pp. 481, 439, 450, 
452, 483; COXII, p. 161. 

4 CXLIYV, vol. ix, p. 569; CXLV, vol. ii, p. 416. 

139 


140 ART IN GREECE 


Are the Dorian invaders responsible for these differences ? 
They used to be credited with too great a share in the matter, 
and the discoveries of the Augean civilization, showing a quite 
other spirit, accentuated still further the divergence between 
the prehistoric world and the Hellenic world constituted 
by the conquest. A more careful study has permitted the 
recognition of the numerous links which bind one period 
to the other,' and a realization that the newcomers had not 
been able to make a clean sweep of the past. Texts remind 
us that the Dorians, few in number, and a warrior caste which 
despised manual labour, had to leave to the ancient popu- 
lation which they had enslaved and thrown back into bar- 
barism, the practice of the arts and industries, and to utilize 
the products their subjects manufactured for their use. Is not 
the artistic and spiritual predominance of the Ionians, who 
were no other than the descendants of the old Augean popu- 
lations, likewise an argument? Hence the question had 
to be faced as to whether there really was a “‘ Dorian ” art, 
and sometimes the answer has been given in the negative— 
which is going too far. There is no Dorian art in the sense 
of an art practised by the conquerors themselves, but there 
is a Dorian art practised for them, which, while it carried 
on the techniques and motifs that had degenerated as a 
result of the invasion and the disturbances following it, 
was constrained, in order to please the conquerors, to bend 
itself to their taste and to bear the impress of their spirit— 
a spirit quite different from that which animated A‘gean and 
Ionian Greece. } 

Long before the final conquest, this change in spirit was 
in progress. The Dorians constituted the last of those migra- 
tions which descended from central Europe to conquer the 
Hellenic peninsula, the islands, and the coasts of Asia Minor, 
and they had been preceded by the Achzeans who on more 
than one occasion settled in Crete and the Peloponnese, 
and whose coming constituted the final phase of the Atgean 
civilization known as the Mycenean. The differences which 
were already present in Aigean art result from these ethnic 
differences. The Cretan palace, conceived on the model of 
an Asiatic palace in the East with its irregular plan and its 
numerous halls, is in strong contrast with the Trojan and 


1 CCXI. 


PLATE VI 


HERAUM AT OLYMPIA 


{ face p. 140 


a> 
kPa 


7 
7 


DORIAN ART 141 


Peloponnesian megaron, which comes from the North and is 
small and logical, and is to be found in its most perfect type 
at Mycene and Tiryns (Fig. 11).'| Asia and Europe are 
already contrasted within the bounds of a single unity, just as, 
later on, the Dorian newcomers, having finally brought the 
AXgean culture to ruin, will present a contrast to the Ionians 
albeit constituting with them a single nation. 

The Dorian spirit is made manifest in architecture.’ 
Assuredly the ‘‘ Doric ” temple (Fig. 12) is no more a Dorian 
creation than the “ Gothic” cathedral is a creation of the 


Fic. 11. MEGARON AT Fic. 12. PLAN OF THE 
TIRYNS. PARTHENON. 


Goths, the Dorians having found its constituent elements 
already in existence on their arrival and having accepted 
them. The Doric temple (Pl. VI) in effect is almost the 
integral copy of the Mycenzan megaron whose plan it repro- 
duces*—longer than it is wide, with the interior of the nave 
divided by columns (Fig. 11), its exterior arrangement of 
columns in antis, as a facade, the form of the columns and 
their capitals, the upper portions with their triglyphs and 
metopes,* and perhaps even the double coping of the roof. 
As the megaron was, the earliest temple is built of wood and 
baked clay. The main difference consists in its purpose. 


1 X¥XXVIL, pp. 48, 103. 2 XXXVI-XLV. 


’ XXXVIL p. 87; XXXVI, p. 7. 4 XLI-III, XLV. 
5 XXXVII, p. 52. 


ee] 


142 ART IN GREECE 


The palace, which already held the cult objects, quite naturally 
became the abode of the god in a society which was no longer 
monarchic, and the oldest temples in Tiryns, Mycene, on the 
Athens Acropolis, in Troy and other places were built on 
the sites of the Mycenzan megarons. Gradually the primi- 
tive plan grew more intricate by the addition of columns 
on the outside and developed into the peripteral type, which 
quite likely had antecedents in pre-Hellenic Greece. But 
although this type of building was not created by the Dorians 
it is thoroughly ‘‘ Doric” in spirit, and for a long while was 
the only type of architecture in continental Greece—before 
the Ionic order found its way there and took root; it con- 
trasts with the Ionic just as the Mycenean megaron does with 
the Cretan palace. Its characters are those which are to be 
found in other forms of Peloponnesian art. : 


+ 
anass 


Fic. 18. PLAN OF THE Fic. 14. PRIMITIVE PROJECT FOR 
ERECHTHEUM. THE ERECHTHEUM, 


The plan of the Ionic temple is less precise and homo- 
geneous, and more complex, as was the case with the Cretan 
palace. The Erechtheum (420-407), left asymmetrical (Fig. 
13) when, apparently, it was intended to be symmetrical 
(Fig. 14) in the primitive project which was not carried out,? 
includes several juxtaposed cellas at different levels, and pro- 
jecting portions, and the small temple of Athena Nike is quite 
different. There is every possible and conceivable variety. 
The Doric building, on the contrary, is obedient to a rigid 
plan as a complete construction, and the small variations are 
confined to details which do not affect the general scheme, 
such as the interior disposition of the columns or the number 
that go round the cella. It is a unique whole whose essential 


1 XXXVII, p. 87; Theuer, Der griechisch-dorische Peripteraliempel. 


Ein Beitrag zur antiken Proportionslehre, Berlin, 1918. : 
2 Against this hypothesis of Dorpfeld, Weller, AJA, xxv, 1921, 
p. 180; Rodenwaldt, Neue Jahrbucher, 1921, p. 1; Dorpfeld, ibid., p. 433, 


DORIAN ART 143 


parts are immediately recognizable and are logically to be 
deduced from one another. 

There is the same precision in their figured art. In con- 
tradistinction to the Ionians, they like restricted and limited 
fields in which a subject is inscribed which is often as concise 
as a laconic word, and the principle of the rectangular metope' 
appeared to be preferable to the continuous frieze for this 
reason (Fig. 15). The decoration of triangular pediments is 
likewise essentially Dorian. The Jonians are often content 
with a bony framework that is merely approximate and lacking 
in cohesion. The continental 
Greeks manifest a more scru- 
pulous regard for exactitude 
and approach more nearly to 
truth in human delineation. 
Even their earliest works, 
despite their awkwardnesses, 
strikingly betoken this desire. 
Perhaps this was why the £ 
Corinthians were the first to \ 
introduce the process of in- 
cision in vase-painting, quickly 
copied by their rivals, which 
enabled them to indicate in 
detail with the burin the in- 
ternal features of the muscles 
instead of leaving a mere Fic. 15. RHODIAN VASE OF GEO- 

: , METRIC STYLE. DECORATION IN 
opaque silhouette or leaving = yperoprs. 
a few parts unpainted.” 

Symmetry, rhythm, balance, alternation and antithesis— 
these are the characteristics of the Peloponnesians in contrast 
with those of the Ionians. The Ionians make their animals 
and people follow one another in the same direction on their 
zones with no reason why they should ever stop, except the 
limits of the surface to be decorated; there is no essential 
beginning or end, and no centre. The Peloponnesians prefer 
a central subject, on either side of which their composition 
is made to balance, a principle which appears to be of European 
origin in contrast with the Oriental principle of the zone. 


1 XLI-XLIII, XLV. 
2 CXLIV, vol. ix, p. 486; CXLV, vol. ii, pp. 429, 437. 


144 ART IN GREECE 


The earliest monuments in painting, the geometric vases of 
the Attic Dipylon, already testify to this tendency. The 
ceramists of Corinth and Athens may adopt the circular 
zone under Oriental and Ionian influence, but they sometimes 
conceive it differently—their animals and groups of persons 
will confront one another and the procession will be divided 
into symmetrical portions which break the monotonous con- 
tinuity. Each metope alternates its smooth or sculptured 
surface with the vertical lines of neighbouring triglyphs. In 
their pediments, once the tentative period is past, from the end 
of the 6th century, a rigorous symmetry constrains each figure 
in a wing exactly to correspond with an opposite number in 
the other wing, and the composition is divided in two by a 
central motif. 


Number is the directing force in Dorian art—alternation 


of triglyphs and metopes above the architrave, balanced 
figures in vase and pediment compositions opposed isolated 
figures, or binary or ternary groups—these are the effects 
of a mathematical conception of art and of a geometrical 
way of looking at things. 

This spirit is abstract. The brilliant naturalism of the 
Egeans, their love of flowers and of the terrestrial and marine 
fauna, of the picturesque, of life in all its forms—this has 
vanished, and the Ionians alone preserve a dim memory of 
it. The Dorians substitute for it an abstract and geometrical 
vision of reality. The pottery which is found everywhere in 
the Greece of the 11th to the 8th centuries and of which the 
Dipylon of Athens presents the most highly developed types, 
is called ‘‘ geometric,’’* because its decoration consists almost 
exclusively of combinations of lines; floral motifs are rare, 
and if they occur are always stylised and well nigh unrecog- 
nizable. Continental Greece preserves this character through 
many centuries; although Ionia sometimes treats floral motifs 
picturesquely, the vases of Corinth, Chalcis, and Attica 
schematize them and the change is invariably to a purely 
decorative form. The Doric temple is no more nor less than a 
composite arrangement of purely geometrical lines from which 
any living form is banished, except in the portions reserved 
for decoration such as pediments, metopes and acroteria. 
Embellishments borrowed from the floral kingdom, such as 


1 CXLIV, vol. vii; CXLV, vol. i, p. 212. 


DORIAN ART 145 


palmettes or volutes, which still preserve a suggestion of the 
palm or the lotus—as in the Ionic order—there are few or 
none. 

There is likewise less suppleness in the lines of the Doric. 
The curves beloved of Augean art, no doubt because they 
approach more nearly to reality, disappear almost entirely 
to be replaced by rigid straight lines. The Ionians manifest 
in their drapery a desire to break up its uniformity by minute 
eriss-crossed and oblique folds; the Dorians conceive drapery 
geometrically, and the skirt of their women in the Dorian 
peplos forms straight parallel folds like the fluting on a 
column. 

If Ionian art is generous, prolix, and is fond of ornament, 
luxury, and occasionally of tinsel, continental Greece manifests 
a remarkable desire for simplicity and sobriety. It disdains 
the redundant and reduces accessories to the minimum. The 
Doric temple seems naked by comparison with the Ionic; the 
one multiplies the mouldings of its bases, gracefully curls 
the volutes of its capitals, chisels bands of rais de cur. bead, 
and palmettes, and covers every available space with reliefs; 
the other resorts only to pure lines and their harmonious com- 
bination. Continental vase-painting renounces, for the first 
time, in the Corinth workshops,’ the overcrowded ornament 
which covers the fields as with a network, and the primitive 
“horror of an empty space ’’ maintained by the imitation of 
Oriental carpets and embroideries. There is a beginning of 
comprehension that beauty does not lie in complication but in 
simplicity, and the subject stands out alone on a naked back- 
ground. A few vases of the Ionian cycle (Rhodes, style II)? 
really seem to denote by this feature an influence come from 
the West. In sculpture there are no gewgaws, elaborately 
dressed heads, displays of jewels, or multitudes of minute 
folds, but a massive treatment, and drapery in which folds are 
barely if at all indicated. The fine Ionian costume is a 
luxurious shimmer of colours and embroideries, and it deter- 
mines the abundant intersecting lines calculated to inspire 
a sculptor; the Dorian peplos, the national dress, is a very 
simple woollen shirt which lends itself ill to such detail and 
which hangs straight.* 


1 CXLV, vol. ix, p. 614; CXLV, vol. ii, p. 450. 
2 CXLIV, vol. ix, p. 428. 3 OCI, CCII, CCIV. 
10 


146 ART IN GREECE 


The Tonians are enamoured of grace and delicacy; the 
continentals pursue strength. The proportions of the Ionian 
canon may be stumpy in imitation of Assyria, but the flesh 
tissues are soft and lacking in substance—flabby. Here, on 
the contrary, are bodies strongly made, with powerful frames 
and firm muscles, and tissues that are hard to the touch. This 
character is even exaggerated and tends towards brutality. 
Heracles and Perseus on the metopes of Selinus,* and the Kouroi 
of Polymedes of Argos are typical ‘‘ strong men.” This 
strength is tense and ready for action like the strength of 
the Dorians themselves who were ever on the defensive in a 
conquered land. There is no smile on these countenances, 
and the straight mouths, like sword-gashes, are grim, whereas 
the Ionians brighten the features of their statues with a 
smile, ; 

Enamoured of vigour, the continentals love the masculine 
body such as gymnastics toughly fashion it. The athlete, 
in his muscular nudity, is more pleasing to them than woman 
with her soft tissues, or than drapery—whereas the Ionians 
show precisely the opposite qualities. 

The Dorians likewise prefer bronze. Its sombre colour 
is better adapted than fair marbles to the masculine figure 
tanned in the open air of the palestra; this material seems to 
them more virile, and makes the silhouette stand out better in 
its sober main lines without drawing the eye to the petty 
details which the polychromy of marble tends to emphasize. 
The great Peloponnesian artists are all bronze-workers, 
and the Argive-Sicyonian school makes this material its 
speciality. | 

These features which are revealed in the archaic are per- 
petuated on Dorian soil throughout the history of Greek art. 
Polymedes of Argos lives again in Ageladas and his disciples, 
and again in Polyclitus, whose athletes have the same strong 
square frame, the same flattened head as the old Kouroi. In 
these workshops there will always be a preference for bronze, 
a love for the masculine body and its solid frame, a tendency 
to sobriety, simplicity and the instinctive seeking after 
number, which determines a study of the rhythm so dear to 
the 5th century. Peloponnesian art, likewise, will ever 
preserve, in so far as it is not softened by contact with Ionian 

1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, pp. 487, 488. 


DORIAN ART 147 


or Attic art, the harshness, the too austere severity and the 
schematic quality still to be seen in the statuary of Polyclitus 
and his pupils. Ionian art runs the risk of being effeminate 
and arch; Peloponnesian art, unadulterated, is too rough. 
Fortunately neither the one nor the other remained isolated 
but each penetrated the other, and their respective qualities 
were welded into one to the great benefit of Greek art. 


CHAPTER IV 
RECONCILIATION OF THE TWO TENDENCIES 


THESE two tendencies mutually influence even while they 
are in opposition to one another. The Corinth potters have 
already gone to the school of Ionianism;' continental art gets 


from it a rich repertory of motifs, and the statuary’s art itself 


is becoming softened by the contact. There has been a 
tendency to exaggerate this influence and to see nothing but 
Ionian characters in the Chrysapha reliefs, the Spartan base, 
and the Cretan and Sicilian sculptures; it has been said that 
even in the 5th century Polyclitus has lost the primitive 
solid frame of the Dorians, that he descends from the Ionian 
sculptors such as Bathycles of Magnesia, who came to the 
Peloponnese in the 6th century to initiate it.2, One may admit 
a less extreme thesis which, while recognizing this undeniable 
influence, yet allows the Peloponnesian studios to keep their 
characteristic features. 

Conversely, we may trace Western infiltration in the 
Ionia of the 6th century. In Greek Egypt, Orientals and Occi- 
dentals rub shoulders and A‘ginetans are cheek by jowl with 
Ionians; the ceramics of Naucratis undergo the influence of 
Corinthian ware and borrow from it the process of incision,° 
while the pottery of Rhodes, imitating the Peloponnesian 
ware, gets rid of the encumbering motifs on the field of its 
vases.* 

Towards 500, political circumstances being to some extent 
responsible, Ionianism declines, and Peloponnesian art becomes 
dominant. The workshops of Argos and Augina have at their 
head masters whose fame carries far. In their turn they are to 
exercise a fruitful influence on Greek art. 

Greek art owes all its qualities to this reconciliation. It 
has been said that ‘“‘ Greece is simply the antithesis of the 
Dorian and the Ionian ” (Renan); it has been claimed that 

1 CXLIV, vol. ix, p. 569. 2 CCXI. 
3 OXLIV, vol. ix, p. 394. 4 Ibid., p. 428. 
148 


DUAL TENDENCIES RECONCILED 149 


*“‘ Tonia on one hand, and Athens on the other, appear as two 
poles between which the Greek spirit fluctuates ’’ (Pottier). 
On the contrary, classic Greek art is the harmonious union of 
qualities proper to them both. It could hardly come about 
in the extreme parts of Ionia and the Peloponnese; it was 
consummated in a land situate midway between, whose spirit 
is nicely balanced between the Dorian and the Ionian spirit, 
and whose art, likewise, is a happy mean—Attica. 


CHAPTER V 


ATTIC ART 


Attica gave herself to the practice of the arts at a very early 
stage, and the “ geometric”’ period foreshadows her future 
successes.! Geometric decoration, instinctive with all primi- 
tive peoples and placed once more in honour or brought in by 
the invaders, was in Attica erected into a veritable sesthetic 
system. The large vases of the Dipylon of the 8th century 
astonish us not only by the material difficulties overcome in 
their firing but also by their skilled composition in decoration, 
by no means of an arbitrary character, which was regulated 
by a definite system. One cannot but recognize this quality 
despite the naive design which is still barbaric and conventional. 
Ceramic industry, in close relation with economic prosperity, 
remains one of the principal branches of production;? it was 
to develop the beautiful Attic style of the black-figure vases 
(6th century) after passing through the proto-Attic stage and 
the Attic-Corinthian phase imbued with Oriental influence; 
then the advent of the red-figure style (end of the 6th century) 
was to foreshadow the ceramic masterpieces of the 5th century. 
The qualities of design peculiar to the Attics was clearly 
revealed at the earliest stage. By the technical skill of their 
manufacture, the qualities of style and the efficient main- 
tenance of a flourishing trade, Attic ceramics gradually imposed 
its wares on Greek and foreign markets® and in the course of 
the 6th century eliminated its rivals such as the Corinthians, 
whose best period was over and who ceased to manufacture 
painted vases somewhere between 480 and 460. 

‘“‘ Doric ” architecture did not take any special forms in 
Attica; the monuments earlier than 480 have disappeared, 
wrecked by the Persian invasion. But their decorations, 
preserved in part, such as the votive and funerary statues 


1 LXXXIV, vol. vii, p. 160; Poulsen, Die Dipylongraber und die 
Dipylonvasen. 


> CXXIX ff. 3 CXLIX. 
150 


ATTIC ART 151 


and reliefs found in the débris, permit us to trace from their 
earliest phase the characteristic features manifested by Attic 
genius in sculpture and confirmed by the data provided by 
pottery. 

It has sometimes been said that Attic art in its earliest 
period was indistinguishable from Doric art, and together 
with it can be contrasted, as a single unity, with the art of 
Greece in Asia. We can no more accept this confusion of 
identity than we can admit the pan-Ionic thesis which would 
annihilate distinctively Peloponnesian characters. The oldest 
sculptural works'—for we need only mention the crude idols 
of the Dipylon in order that they may not be overlooked— 
the pediments in soft stone of the Acropolis (end of the 7th 
and beginning of the 6th centuries), and the earliest marble 
statues (second quarter of the 6th century), differ from the 
Ionian and Peloponnesian works at the same time that they 
resemble them; from its beginnings Attic art occupies a 
happy mean between these extreme tendencies; it links the 
desire for grace and elegance manifested in the one to the effort 
to obtain strength and precision shown by the other. To 
characterize these Attic works we cannot do better than 
quote the words of a very fine connoisseur of primitive Attic 
sculpture: “‘ Placed side by side with the Selinus metopes 
_the people on the ancient pediments of the Acropolis, even the 
most monstrous, appear almost elegant; at least the vigour 
of their nude bodies has not that extreme heaviness and 
stiffness which distinguishes their Sicilian contemporaries. 
And what a difference in their physiognomy! The coun- 
tenances of the triple Typhon breathe amenity, and the joy 
of living, together with a desire to please; they have a frank 
expression and a light and happy smile; they are far removed 
from the air of inflexible severity which hardens the eyes, 
compresses the lips and clenches the jaw of Heracles or 
Perseus.” In the Ionian reliefs of Assos, what strikes us is 
the effeminacy, the backboneless character of the bodies 
despite the savagery of the scene. “ Very different is the 
nature revealed in the contemporary Attic sculptors: they 
have more sap and vitality, greater firmness of hand and a 
more frank manner of reaching their goal; and even their 
visible preference for solid construction and strong frames, 


1 LXXII, LXXVITI-IX, LX XXIX-XC, XCIV. 


152 ART IN GREECE 


for robustness rather than finesse in form, leads one to think 
that, despite their racial affinities, they are less closely related 
to the Ionians than to the Dorians.”’* 

Vase-painting reveals the same dualism. Ionia exerted 
on it its influence from a very early period, and taught it to 
use floral decoration, bands of animals, and more particularly 
to show a preference for illustrating mythological scenes. 
But others of its qualities are Peloponnesian—its symmetry, 
antithetic groups, ever growing exclusive preference for the 
human form, love of the nude and muscular figure, sobriety, 
and clarity which sometimes amounts to dryness. The 
black-figure vases of the 6th century, the crater of Ergotimus 
and Clitias,? the later works of Amasis and Exekias clearly 
testify that these tendencies are present in colour as well as 
in form.® It was by going to the school of the Dorian race 
‘that the Ionians of Attica won that balance, that sane 
proportion which has become so significant an element of their 
genius ”’ (Pottier). 

Black-figure vase-painting, disengaging itself from fruitful 
foreign influences, Ionian and Corinthian, more and more 
asserted its originality. Sculpture followed a parallel road. 
It. learned much that was valuable from Ionia. This influence, 
still timid about 560, became dominant under the government 
of Pisistratus and his sons, who followed an islands and an 
Asiatic continental policy, and it reached its apogee between 
540 and 510, to lose all its active power about 500. It is to 
this period that the smiling Korai of the Acropolis belong, 
some of them carved by Ionian artists, the rest imitated from 
them by native sculptors. Attic art was transformed: it had 
got from the Ionians the knowledge of working in marble with 
its soft and supple modelling, the rendering of drapery, 
elegance, grace and charm, all of which was to tone down the 
still somewhat harsh quality of primitive Atticism.* 

From about the year 500, however, the Attic artist turned 
his regard towards the Peloponnesian studios, whose influence 
manifests itself in sculpture as in ceramics (red-figure vases 
of Euphronius and Douris). He gained new qualities from 
this schooling. He learned from the Dorians a better appre- 
ciation of bronze for the reproduction of the human figure, 


1 Lechat, LXXVIII, p. 136. 2 OXLIV, vol. x, p. 1387. 
8 CXLYV, vol. iii, p. 612 ff. 4 LXXVIII, LXXIX. 


ATTIC ART 153 


especially the body of the athlete; he ceased to devote himself 
to minutie and an exaggerated care for details, and gave up 
seeking after a sometimes affected elegance, to cultivate 
instead sobriety and simplicity of drapery and hair; he 
abandoned the now stereotyped smile for a grave expression 
of countenance that had been manifested in Peloponnesian 
sculpture from the earliest times; he straightened up the 
receding forehead of the Ionian heads (Fig. 16) till he had 
achieved the vertical ‘“‘ Hellenic’ profile (Fig. 17) already 
aimed at in the old Peloponnesian work; in his technique he 
acquired a more exact rendering of such details of the human 
body as the eyes and muscles." 


mT 


Fic. 16. RECEDING PROFILE Fic. 17. ‘**‘ HELLENIC’’ PROFILE 
ON A 6TH-CENTURY IONIAN ON A LECYTHUS OF THE MIDDLE 
VASE. OF THE 5TH CENTURY. 


Thenceforth the Attic artist was to blend in one harmonious 
and original whole his own native qualities and those he owed 
to the Ionians and the Dorians. Exaggerated grace, elegance 
and sweetness on the one hand, and a too hard and tense 
strength on the other, were to be toned down to a grace which 
did not degenerate into affectation, a sweetness that was not 
effeminacy and a strength that avoided roughness. Atticism 
shows these qualities from the first half of the 5th century 
and preserves them throughout its existence. These, allow- 
ing for the differences of time and temperament, are the 
qualities of Phidias and Praxiteles. Now Ionian and now 
Dorian traits come uppermost, according to the individual 
artist and his training, and we can distinguish two tendencies, 


1 LXXVIII, p. 384. 


154 ART IN GREECE 


developing simultaneously, an Attic-Ionian, manifested in 
Calamis and Callimachus, and an Attic-Dorian, manifested in 
Phidias. But these are merely nuances which shade into the 
complete whole.’ 

Athens achieved dominance by this reconciliation of 
diverse characters and also through happy political cireum- 
stances. Her merchant fleet, protected by the navy, exported 
the products of her ceramic industry far and wide. The 
Corinthians, who had got into a rut of routine, did not realise 
what tremendous progress would be achieved by the Attic 
invention of red-figure decoration at the close of the 6th 
century; they saw their own industry decline, driven off the 
markets by Attic vases, in the first quarter of the 5th century, 
and this was one of the reasons for the hostility between 
Athens and Corinth, which was to lead to the outbreak of the 
Peloponnesian war. 

The artistic fame of Athens began to grow from the first 
half of the 5th century. In the second half of this century 
she was the intellectual and artistic centre of Greece, drawing 
artists from all parts. Ionia no longer existed as an inde- 
pendent centre; a few of her artists continued to practise 
their art in Greece in Asia, in particular for the Lycian and 


Carian dynasts, but they came under the influence of the © 


Attic masters and reflected the style of Phidias, and many 
of them came to Athens. The Peloponnese itself, which 
possessed the flourishing Argive school, witnessed Polyclitus 
softening his too severe style by contact with Phidian art. 
A pleiad of Athenian artists radiated the fame of their city 
by working in the Peloponnese, at Phigalia, Olympia, and 
in the isles and in Asia Minor. Everywhere, those works 
which were really Attic, or were inspired by them, celebrate 
the glory of the city which Pericles justifiably held up to 
the admiration of the world. 

Doubtless from the 4th century the distinctions between 
the different schools grew less marked owing to the greater 
interpenetration that now went on; doubtless, too, with the 
coming of the Hellenistic monarchies, other art centres com- 
peted with Athens and took away her lead, for her creative 
vein had petered out and she lived on her glorious past. 
Yet Attic art was preserved from the Hellenistic excesses of 

1 LXXVIIL, p. 351. 


are “ ~~ 


ATTIC ART 155 


emotion and exaggerated musculature manifest in the Asia 
Minor schools, thanks to its nice feeling for proportion. 
Up to the end the Attic artists remained faithful to the 
old ideal which produced the masterpieces of Phidias and 
Praxiteles, and it was they who taught the Romans to 
admire it. 


CHAPTER VI 
LOCAL SCHOOLS 


THESE three great ethnic divisions were subdivided in their 
turn into smaller groups. These were the studios and schools 
whose character differed according to locality, and which 
marked with their more or less original imprint the products 
of the industrial arts and of sculpture. 

Their réle was especially important in archaic times. 
By the 5th century the artist, freed from the constraint of 
the old conventions, was expressing his own individuality; 
but before that time the studio tradition and the stylistic 
processes handed down from father to son, from master to 
pupil, in the same environment, thus constituting a traditional 
discipline, took precedence of individual artistic characteriza- 
tion. In the Ionian art of the 6th century, one can dis- 
tinguish the ceramic workshops of the Cyclades, of Rhodes, of 
Naucratis and of Cyrene; the sculptural studios of Chios, of 
Miletus and of Samos; and in Peloponnesian art the pottery 
of Corinth, of Argos and Sicyon, and the sculptural schools 
of Argos, Laconia and Augina. Beneath the features common 
to the ethnic group, the expert seeks to determine the more 
individual details which separate one local school from another. 
Insular Ionian art reveals different qualities from those 
manifest on the Asiatic coast: in statuary it likes attenuated 
proportions, inherited, maybe, from the Aigeans, whereas 
the statuary art of Asia, influenced by the East, prefers 
stockiness. 

Confronted by works of uncertain provenance, one often 
hesitates to attribute them to this centre rather than that. 
In fact, the schools were frequently interrelated, and even by 
the 6th century spoke a kind of common dialect. Certain 
scholars for this reason contest the existence of regional 
schools, putting forward by way of argument the numberless 
collaborations between Attic, Aiginetan and Peloponnesian 
artists; they claim that there is no ground for setting up 

156 


LOCAL SCHOOLS 157 


distinctions in the first half of the 5th century between the 
features of the sculptures of Argive, Sicyonian and Atgine- 
tan schools, that, on the contrary, there is a remarkable 
uniformity of style and a general unification.' Assuredly, 
it was an error to multiply these regional groups to excess, 
to go so far as to create certain fictitious schools on the 
strength of mistaken criteria such as provenance, quality 
of the material and details of style which a closer examina- 
tion has shown to be non-existent (for example, a Naxos school 
of the 6th century founded on the use of Naxian marble, and 
a Northern Greek school), and to seek subtle nuances which 
often existed nowhere but in the mind of the archeologist.” 
Both these points of view are extremist, but mere suppression 
of the reality of local groups will not solve the difficulties. 
The Atginetan ideal is not that of the Attics, and although 
the Peloponnese turns Attic sculpture into a new direction 
at the beginning of the 5th century, it is yet hardly possible 
to confound the ephebus of Ligourio,* a work by one of the 
successors of the Argive sculptor Ageladas, with ephebus 
No. 698 of the Acropolis, conceived, perhaps, by the Athenian 
Critius.* For the rest, does not the school of Argus show a 
remarkable continuity of style from Polymedes (6th century) 
up to the time of the disciples of Polyclitus ? 

What is undoubtedly true is that the distinction between 
the regional schools grows less with the passage of time. The 
work of unification already begun in the 6th century was 
pursued in the first half of the 5th century and renders these 
differences less and less perceptible; in the second half of 
this century one can no longer distinguish any schools except 
the Attic which Phidias and his disciples render illustrious, 
and the Argive-Sicyonian represented by Polyclitus and his 
successors. Even these two are mutually interpenetrated, 
because, though there may be something Dorian in Phidias, 
there is also something Attic in Polyclitus and more especially 
in those who carried on his tradition in the 4th century. 
Regional differences become more and more blotted out in 
the 4th century, and art takes on an international character. 
None the less, one still perceives slight differences of style 
between the schools of Pergamum, of Rhodes, of Antioch 


1 LXXIII, p. 23 ff. 2 VI, vol. i, p. 413. 
3 LXI, vol. i, p. 322, 4 LXXVIII, p. 452. 


158 ART IN GREECE 


and of Alexandria, and an ideal that is very different from 
the ideal of the Attic school. 

For these regional schools a personal school was now to 
be substituted, that is to say the zsthetic ideal and stylistic 
processes inaugurated by an original artist which are docilely 
followed by his disciples. Phidias and Polyclitus, doubtless, 
are traditionalists, but they are likewise powerful geniuses 
whose personal style impresses itself on the one hand on 
Attic art and on the other on the Argive art of the second 
half of the 5th century and even of subsequent centuries. 
In the 4th century Praxiteles, Scopas and Lysippus are also 
heads of schools whose influence, concurrently with that of 
their earlier rivals, we can follow up to the very end in Greek 
art. 


CHAPTER VII 
ARTISTIC INDIVIDUALITIES' 


THE personality of the individual artist must also be taken 
into account in this analysis of the differences between schools. 
Texts, and their own signatures, have often given us their 
names. Sometimes the pride of the creative artist is naively 
shown: ‘“‘Alxenor the Naxian made it; behold it!” (6th- 
century stele).2 They rivalled one another in skill, and 
_ Kuthymides, the vase-painter, proclaims of his own work that 
Kuphronius never did anything better (first quarter of the 
5th century).® 

In the 6th century there are plenty of names—need we 
recall the Chios family comprising Micciades, Archermus, 
Bupalus and Athenis,* and others as well? We cannot deny 
them their originality. But it is to be found mainly in the 
application of some new technical process or in the happy 
choice of a motif. Archermus of Chios invents the type of 
the winged Victory, or, rather, adapts an old Oriental theme 
to the goddess; Glaucus of Chios, according to the Ancients, 
invented iron soldering; Rhcoecus and Theodorus of Samos 
introduced from Egypt hollow bronze-casting. They per- 
fected the effects sought by their predecessors, working out 
in closer detail the study of drapery and anatomy, and Cimon 
of Cleonz was better at rendering folds, transparent drapery, 
and foreshortening than those who had gone before him. 

But individual style had not yet asserted itself. Their 
work pre-eminently reflected the studio tradition, showing 
the family likeness it bore to the work of the local or national 
school, and no individual talent stands out from the uni- 
formity of the mass. 

The individual artist’s personality grew in stature in the 
5th century, whether in painting, sculpture or pottery; 
obvious differences in style and execution now correspond 

1 CLIT ff. 2 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 360. 


3 CXLIV, vol. x, p. 391. 4 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 298. 
159 


160 ART IN GREECE 


with differences in name. Calamis, Myron, Callimachus and 
Phidias in sculpture; Euphronius, Douris and Brygus in 
vase-painting, to quote only a few names at random, cannot 
be confounded the one with the other. Individual tempera- 
ment now begins to play its part, whereas previously art had 
progressed chiefly by the collective effort of workshops. 
From the 5th century the history of art begins to be that 
which hitherto it has not been and which it has been nowhere 
else in antiquity, a history of artistic individualities which 
modify its development according to their will. Neither 
Egypt nor Mesopotamia can make such a claim: it is one 
among the many titles to glory possessed by the Greek artist 
that he could impress his own strong personality on art. 

From this date, while we distinguish in works of art the 
features belonging to this or that ethnic or local group, we 
must endeavour to discover these individual differences. 
A difficult study, in the uncertain state of our knowledge, 
on which scholars have often wasted much ingeniousness 
and subtlety in vain.1 Too often they have attempted to 
define the style of a master, of whom nothing is known but 
his name and a list of his works, by the aid of anonymous 
monuments or later copies of vanished originals! They 
have even gone so far as to manufacture complete artists 
who have never existed except as phantoms of their own 
fancy, and this to reconcile the contradictory data of texts 
and monuments, so that Aleamenes the Older, Calamis the 
Younger, and Scopas the Elder have been called forth from 
the void only to be chased back again in the end by 
common sense. 

And how uncertain is our knowledge of the artists who 
really did exist and whose works won the admiration of the 
Ancients! What do we know of Calamis, of Callimachus, 


of Aleamenes, and of many other artists of repute? Hven. 


Phidias’ personality is hard to disentangle from that of his 
pupils. How very rare are those plastic originals about 
which no doubt whatever exists and which permit us to 
ascertain with absolute certainty the style of a master! 
Though the Hermes of Olympia really appears to have been 
carved by Praxiteles himself, we only have copies of Myron 
and Polyclitus. What actually was the share of Phidias in 
1 VI, vol. i, p. 268 ff. 


ia 


ARTISTIC INDIVIDUALITIES 161 


the Parthenon, of Scopas at Tegea and in the Mausoleum at . 
Halicarnassus ? Not a single copy can be definitely attri- 
buted to Pythagoras of Rhegium, to Calamis, Callimachus, 
Aleamenes, or to numberless others, and the reconstruction 
of their artistic activity is but a tissue of hypotheses, some 
of which are plausible while the others are doomed almost 
as they appear. This deceptive study, like the study of 
regional schools, should teach the expert caution, and with 
even better reason. He is justified in trying to characterize 
the personal style of the masters so long as he does not attempt 
—as is too often done—to pass off fragile hypotheses as actual 
truth, and so long as he does not obscure and complicate the 
history of Greek art. How much time has been wasted in 
testing these hypotheses—and then in destroying them! In 
the effort to be too precise the history of Greek artists be- 
comes untruthful. Further, it is not the individual who 
matters so much as his work; the thoughts and emotions 
revealed by the monuments themselves are more interesting 
than the personality of those who created them or than the 
somewhat peurile satisfaction of having attributed a certain 
piece of work to a given artist. : 
Yet we perceive that there was great variety among these 
artistic temperaments. Some are more bound by tradition 
than others; while they achieve progress they continue to 
follow docilely in the way traced for them by their predeces- 
sors. Phidias and Polyclitus are traditionalists par ezxcel- 
lence who carry to its culminating point an earlier ideal 
slowly elaborated by such men as Hegias and Ageladas. In 
taste, Calamis and Callimachus are heirs to the Ionian spirit, 
and carry on the work of the 6th-century sculptors. A few, 
in their technical routine, persevere in antiquated practices, 
and somewhere about 415 the sculptor of one of the Caryatids 
of the Erechtheum models a back according to the process 
of his 6th-century ancestor.' Among vase painters, some 
look towards the past and some towards the future. The 
differences between the two pediments at AXgina (about 470), 
between the Parthenon metopes (about 442-440), are not 
the result of chronological discrepancy but proceed from a 
difference in the age and temperament of the authors, of 
whom some, who are old, maintain the style in vogue in 


1 LXXVIII, p. 493. zi 


162 ART IN GREECE 


their youth, whilst others, who are younger, exhibit new 


tendencies. 


There are, as a fact, some spirits who are greater innovators 


than others, and who seek fresh paths. In the 5th century 
such were Pythagoras of Rhegium’ and Myron,” masters of 
action and of violent and quick movement, which they im- 
port into isolated statues from reliefs and figurines. 3 

There are some who are enamoured of calm and repose. 
It is they who complete the development of the old statuary 
type of the immobile archaic Kouros and Kore. In these 
images the muscles are slack, and the weight of the body 
rests on one leg, the arms make but simple and slow gestures 
such as that of the athlete placing the victor’s crown on, his 
head, or pouring into his hand the oil with which he is about 
to anoint his body, or knotting about his temples the fillet of 
victory. The severe Dorian peplos covers the women with 
its vertical folds. Such was the ideal of Phidias, who yet 
interested himself also in light arrangements of moving drapery 
and in bold gestures, and such, in particular, is the ideal 
of Polyclitus and of Praxiteles. Polyclitus’ ephebi, and his 
very rare women, exhibit only the smallest degree of action. 
How calm are the Doryphoros, the Diadumenos, and the 
Westmacott ephebus!® The Ancients claimed that Poly- 
clitus invented the walking attitude, in which the body’s 
weight rests on one leg whilst the other, in the rear, and 
poised on the ball of the foot, appears to be on the point of 
moving forward. In reality this is not action but a means 
of varying the rhythm of a body in repose—of which the 
Argive master, moreover, was not the inventor. In the 
Panathenaic procession the actors slowly advance towards 
the temple entrance where the presentation of the peplos to 
Athena takes place, giving the impression of tranquillity 
and of enduring life about which there is nothing fugitive. 
Praxiteles resorts even to nonchalant and languid attitudes 
in which the body, no longer supporting itself, leans its weight 
on a pillar. 

Quite different is the desire of Pythagoras of Rhegium and 
of Myron. They seek the accidental, the pose that is fugitive 
and unstable. The athlete straining his body to throw the 
discus, Silenus flinging up legs and arms in a disordered 

* CLXIV. * CLXIX. 5 LXX, p. 250. 


ee 


ARTISTIC INDIVIDUALITIES 163 


gesture of surprise, and the pugilist raising his fist to strike 
the brutal blow, show the mobile variety of reality; this desire 
contrasts by its ardent energy with the slight nuances in 
the state of repose at which their confréres aim, and with 
that apparent monotony for which the Ancients reproached 
Polyclitus, whose statues, they said, are pene ad unum 
ewemplum. 

Then there are idealists who abstract from reality the 
permanent and durable features irrespective of the accidental, 
such as, again, Phidias and Polyclitus, Others are more 
realistic, such as Myron and Pythagoras who catch the fleeting 
action and are led to a closer observation of nature. They 
testify to it in the details of the human body; they render the 
hair, the tendons and veins more scrupulously; they are more 
anxious to reproduce nature faithfully than to embellish it 
according to some preconceived ideal. Pythagoras already 
seeks to render the signs of passion, of pain and of age in his 
faces. That is why, when art finally developed in a realistic 
direction, at the beginning of the 4th century, later artists 
claimed him as their precursor. 

There are artists who imprison the soul, or a thought, in 
stone. Phidias’ countenances, however calm they may be, 
are not inert; they seem to be plunged in profound reverie; 
the spiritual sculptor gives a soul to his ephebi and to his 
maidens who advance gravely along the Panathenaic frieze, 
as he has given a soul to his gods, and to his Olympian Zeus. 
But with Polyclitus and Myron the body takes precedence 
over the mind; these artists had no other thought than to 
render the human body in its most beautiful aspect, without 
troubling to ennoble it with an intelligence. 

According to their tastes and their places of origin indivi- 
dual artists lean towards Ionian delicacy, Attic charm, or 
Peloponnesian strength and severity. Some prefer the naked 
figure of man and his solid musculature. Polyclitus creates 
nothing but athletic statues, and the Amazon is an exception 
among his works. Pythagoras, likewise, chose male figures, 
avoided drapery and the representation of woman, Lysippus 
was of this line, with his athletes and his statues of Heracles. 
Others, on the contrary, liked the supple and sensuous female 
figure, and drapery which offers so many possibilities of beauty 
in its folds and by its contrast with human flesh; such was 


164 ART IN GREECE 


Praxiteles. Witness, for example, the vase-painting of the 
beginning of the 5th century—with Oltus it was almost 
always draped figures; with Brygus the muscles were indicated 
less exactly than with Euphronius, because feminine nudity 
attracted him more. 

There were artists whose interests were rather with earth 
than with the gods, who made a study of the living body 
rather than dreamed of conceiving superhuman images of 
divinities—Pythagoras of Rhegium and Polyclitus, for example. 
Their ideal was above all human, and they form a contrast 
with Phidias whose imagination flees from the real to dwell 
in the realm of the Olympians with Athena and Zeus and the 
rest. 

How diverse are all these individualities beneath their 
apparent uniformity! The variety results from - different 
causes, from personal temperament and taste, from age, and 
even from the ethnic origin of the individual. In vase-paint- 
ing, the foreign potters preferred drapery to complete nudity— 
a reminiscence of Oriental ideas of modesty unknown to the 
Greeks. The rank of the artist also enters into this question, 
and that is partly why potters are more realistic than sculptors, 
because, being artisans of humble extraction, they are closer 
to the people and less embarrassed in their productions by 
social convenances, 

Thus we must take note of individual variants which, 
perceptible at every period, introduce into art, however 
homogeneous it may be, the complexity and subtle shades of 
difference proper to life. They are responsible for artists 
such as Lycius and Styppax’ being realists during the height 
of 5th-century idealism; and, later on, for Attic idealism 
carrying on in its classical manner in the face of the realism 
and triumphant emotionalism of the Hellenists; they explain 
the continuities of style; they foreshadow the still obscure 
tendencies destined to become paramount later, the various 
currents which run right through the history of Greek art, 
now distinct, and now in a mingled stream. 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 128. 


ON ea ae 


PART THREE 
REALIZATION, TECHNICAL PROBLEMS 


How will the artist realize his thought ? On the morrow 
of the Dorian invasions he was back, in technique, in native 
barbarism. His material forced strange conventions on him— 
the conventions of art’s earliest beginnings—and these he 
had to get rid of gradually, in measure as he became more 
skilled. He had to educate his vision and establish an exact 
- correspondence between this vision, which perceived, the hand 
that worked, and the material to be manipulated. He had to 
solve problems of anatomy, drapery, pose, foreshortening, per- 
spective, modelling and composition. These difficulties were 
Overcome in stages; each age brought some fresh progress. 
This apprenticeship in technical methods which would make it 
possible for him to realize an esthetic ideal constitutes an 
essential chapter of the history of Greek art; as we come to 
see how the artist finally bent to his will the rebellious material 
which at first resisted all his efforts to master it, and as 
we find out what chiefly engaged his attention, plastically 
and pictorially, we shall come to understand what those 
characteristic features of Hellenic art really are which we 
shall note individually later on. 

This education did not come to the Greek from without; 
he had to master it himself. Soon he had overtaken his 
predecessors and his contemporaries and he opened up a 
wide road of progress for art. He grappled with problems 
which at the very most had been glanced at by other minds 
prior to his day, such as pose, rhythm, muscles in repose and 
in action, drapery, the principles of composition, of foreshorten- 
ing and perspective and so on—acquisitions which to-day 
seem banal but which were then all quite new. Modern art, 
which profits by them, owes them to those Greek masters 
who, by long effort and experiment, urged on by their sense 
of reality and their esthetic feeling, solved these problems 


once and for all. 
5 165 


166 ART IN GREECE 


And what are these problems ? 

Firstly: The constitution of the several branches of art; 
and in each of them a definition of the forms and typical themes 
which were to become the moulds of thought. | 

Secondly: The choice of the materials to be used and 
which were to be the vehicles of thought. 

Thirdly: The acquisition of the grammar of art, at first 
incorrectly and then perfectly; the knowledge of how to 
transcribe the human body in its thousand details, the drapery 
which covers it, and the life proper to it; the constitution of 
the syntax of art, that is to say, the raising of it from detail 
to the co-ordination of its parts with a view of building up 
an esthetic synthesis; and a careful examination of rhythm, 
symmetria, harmony, composition, and modifications of 
reality by action, atmosphere and so forth. 

Towards 450-445 (the date of the Doryphoros of Polyclitus 
and of many of the celebrated works of Phidias, such as the 
Athena Lemnia, about 450, and the Athena Promachos, 
about 448) this patiently experimental stage was finished. 
The few naivetés which still persisted in the time of those 
who went just before (beginning of the 5th century) had dis- 
appeared. It only remained finally to solve the problems of 
pictorial modelling, of linear and aerial perspective, and to 
introduce nuances testifying to a modified ideal. The great 
artists of the second half of the 5th century had merely to 
practise and perfect their knowledge and to rub off the edge 
of extreme novelty—to make it, as it were, instinctive and 
natural; those of the 4th century and of Hellenistic times 
could add nothing to it that was essential, and were to con- 
tribute simply a few unimportant modifications. 


Os g ow —_ 


CHAPTER I 


THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF ART AND THE 
CHOICE OF MATERIAL 


Tue Greeks created original forms personal to themselves 
in every branch of art—in architecture, painting, sculpture 
and the industrial arts. 

They created for their divinity a dwelling—the temple*— 
quite unknown to the Augeans, whose sacred places were 
eaves, high-places, and chapels within their palaces. In 
continental Greece they made use of the Mycenzan megaron 
which became the Doric temple; in Greece in Asia maybe they 
also took some elements of the Doric temple from pre-Hellenic 
buildings, and there were others that they got from the East. 
But these borrowed elements were so thoroughly transformed 
and adapted that boththe Doric and Ionic orders were genuinely 
Greek creations. The elaboration of this creation was com- 
plete by the 6th century. The Doric temple, built at first 
of wood and brick and then, from the end of the 7th century, 
of stone, had refined its too heavy forms, and had succeeded 
in achieving the best relation between its various parts, such 
as columns and entablatures, the harmony of its lines, and 
the distribution of polychromy and ornament. Henceforth 
slight modifications only are possible, for example in the 
echinus whose curve became more and more upright.” The 
capitals at Aigina (towards 470),° Delphi (Treasury of the 
Athenians, about 485), already classic, foreshadow those of 
the Parthenon (447-38). The Parthenon marks the apogee 
of the Doric;. later architects could only introduce nuances, 
or contaminations, frequently unfortunately, which betraye 
exhaustion. 

The Ionic column, for its part, also evolving from wood 
to stone, built up its floral ornament, straightened the volutes 

1 XXIII ff. : 
idea Evolution du chapiteau dorique depuis le viie siécle,” JOAT, 
X1X-xx, 1919, p. 167. 
3 Furtwaengler, Aegina, 1906. 
167 


168 ART IN GREECE 


of its capital which at Delos and at the Acropolis at Athens 
(end of the 6th century) already foreshadow that of the Erech- 
theum (420-407) (Fig. 18). This provides the typical example 
of this architectural order, henceforth to be the rival of the 
Doric on the Continent.? 

The Corinthian capital, which, although its elements may 
be sought in earlier times, appeared first in the temple at 
Phigalia (about 420), does not constitute an order properly 
speaking, being really only a variant of the Ionic. It was to be 
preferred, at a later period, in which growing luxury replaced 
the old sobriety, because it was richer than the Ionic and 
especially than the Doric (Fig. 19). 


Fic. 18. oe CAPITAL IN Fic. 19. CORINTHIAN CAPITAL OF 
THE ERECHTHEUM. THE THOLOS AT EKPIDAURUS, BE- 
GINNING OF THE 4TH CENTURY. 


These three forms are characteristic of Greek architecture 
and reveal to us the esthetic thought of the Greeks. Born 
of cult necessities, they are adapted to such various uses as 
funerary edifices, fountains, stoas and markets among public 
buildings, and to private dwelling-houses. We find the 
principle of the Doric or Ionic colonnade and entablature 
everywhere. 

The other buildings which realize architectural ideas,” 
such as graves and utilitarian structures, ramparts, aqueducts 
and ports, are less typical and do not call for notice. 

The Doric temple provides fields for decoration: the 
triangle of the pediment and the rectangle of the metopes 
at first called for painting (terra cotta metopes at Thermos, 
6th century), then relief and carving in the round. Fresh 


1 See above, p. 180. 2 XXIII ff. 


BRANCHES OF ART 169 


problems were set the artist, who could not seek models in 
the Oriental or pre-Hellenic arts, in which such decoration 
was unknown, although the Augeans had a knowledge of the 
principle of alternation between metope and triglyph. And 
we shall see what were the solutions arrived at after some 
experimental efforts." On these fields, as on the sculptured 
frieze borrowed from the East, the artist was to record the 
exploits of gods and heroes and to glorify religion and the city. 

Both the Augeans and the Greeks of the geometric period 
were ignorant of statuary in the round and knew figurines 
only. The earliest representations of human beings and 
animals of large size appeared only about the 7th century, 
and thenceforward they were to multiply. Was the artist 
influenced by seeing Egyptian statues? Perhaps the inno- 

_ vation was necessitated by the very conditions of social life. 
The anthropomorphic god, in effect, had to live in his temple; 
just as his dwelling is analogous to the dwelling of a human 
being, so his effigy had to be conceived at least on the same 
scale as that of mortal man. The custom of consecrating 
images of victors in the national games, and of raising portraits 
over the grave of the dead, likewise forced the artist to increase 
the size of the divine images. 

The statue fulfilled a multitude of purposes. Gods and 
heroes were placed in the cella of the temple, in the empty 
pediments, and were erected in the open air. On graves” it 
was an image of the dead or an allegorical symbol, a lion or 
a siren. Mortal men offered themselves as ex votos to the 
divinity or commemorated some official event celebrated by 
the city. Later on, statues were used decoratively in houses 
and gardens. All of which supplied the artist with so many 
opportunities for creative production. 

But the modelling of figurines’ in different materials 
such as clay or bronze, which, at a lower cost, did duty for 
the same purpose, was still continued: there were figurines 
as offerings in the sanctuaries, figurines placed in graves, 
figurines in connection with the domestic cult, and, much 
later, decorative figurines. Produced by industrial art, they 
yet retain a clear reflection of high art, and this is even more 
surely reflected in the charming Tanagra and Myrina statuettes 

than in later marble copies. Humble as the material may be, 

1 Cf. further on, p. 251. 2 LXIII. ° CV ff. 


170 ART IN GREECE 


are they not originals which preserve the thought of the 
modeller intact ? 

Metopes, friezes, pediments, funerary stele, official and 
private ex voto, decree headings—all provided so many 
surfaces to be decorated. If some of these presented an 
immutable rectangle, triangle, or band, others provided forms 
which developed with time and which gave greater oppor- 
tunities for variety to the artist. It was impossible to inscribe 
more than a single erect figure in profile on the tall narrow slab 
which was the form of the 6th-century Ionian stele. In the 
5th century a wider stele was preferred, which terminated in 
a pediment with acroteria; on this less limited field there 
could be a larger number of different attitudes and the number 
of figures carried could be increased. In the 4th century 
architectural decoration has become of greater importance 
and the pediment is advanced, antee limit it at the sides, and 
the stele takes on the appearance of a naiskos, in the interior 
of which the figures stand out in high relief, very nearly in the 
round. Great masters were not too proud to carve these 
industrial works, and the beautiful stele of Aristonautes 
(Athens Museum, first half of the 4th century) might be from 
the hand of Scopas himself.’ 

Painting on a large scale,” rendered illustrious by Poly- 
enotus, Micon, Panainus, Zeuxis, Apelles, Parrhasius and many 
another, has left not a trace, and we can only get a glimpse of 
what it was through the medium of industrial works such as 
painted stelee, terra cotta ex votos, tomb decoration, and, more 
particularly, vase-painting.® Done in fresco, in distemper, 
and occasionally in encaustic, its réle was pre-eminently 
architectural; it was employed in the beginning for orna- 
menting the wall surfaces of religious and public buildings, 
before it came to contribute to the decoration of private dwel- 
lings about the close of the 5th century, and before it quitted 
the surfaces of walls for the small picture (4th century). . 

All these various forms of art are closely interrelated, 
and they all reflect the general characters of Greek zsthetics. 
In some, progress may have been more rapid than in others; 
painting and drawing were in advance of sculpture in the 
round, and, from the geometric Dipylon period, when sculptors 


1 LXIV ; LXII, vol. i, p. 255; ii, pp. 145, 372. 
2 CXV ff. 3 CXXIX ff. 


— 


BRANCHES OF ART 171 


were carving rude ivory figurines, painters had already be- 
come capable of composing complex scenes on big vases. 
This advance was kept up throughout the story of Greek art. 
The vase designers and painters made the first experiments, 
created the motifs and made use of the technical methods 
which were later adopted by sculptors and bronze-workers; 
it was they, likewise, who made the first attempts at fore- 
shortening, perspective, modelling, and chiaroscuro, and, 
finally, who introduced realism of view into art. 

There was always interpenetration between the different 
branches. Sculptors and painters borrow mutually. The in- 
dustrial art of the makers of stelze and ex votos, of the figurine 
modellers and vase-painters, followed, at a distance, the lessons 
of fresco and sculpture. It is necessary to understand this 
reciprocal action, as also to take note of the relations which 
bound artists and writers together. The same spirit runs 
through all the productions of Greek thought. 

Does the artist prefer one of these forms above the others ? 
Important as painting may be, sculpture’ takes precedence 
of it. The surfaces available for decoration by painting 
are few and exiguous. They consist of the walls of sanctuaries, 
public buildings, assembly halls (Lesche of Cnidus, at Delphi, 
decorated by Polygnotus), and stoas (the Athens Poekile, 
painted by Polygnotus, Micon, and Panainus); then, when art, 
had become secularized, those of private dwellings (decoration 
of the house of Alcibiades by Agatharchus at the end of the 
5th century); and also those of funerary stele and vaults which 
were left to industrial craftsmen. There was not much point 
in enriching and brightening buildings by painting in a country 
like Greece, with its clement skies, where people lived in the 
open air. Furthermore, paintings are ephemeral, a failing 
in the eyes of the Greeks who sought to make their works of 
art lasting. Painted funerary stele are rare by comparison 
with those that were sculptured. It would even seem that 
sculpture came to take the place of painting in the course of 
a natural development. Although the ancient metopes at 
Thermos (6th century) are still of painted terra cotta, neces- 
sitated by a wooden entablature, the later stone temple adopts 
metopes of smooth or sculptured stone. The opportunities 
of sculpture were on a different scale. It was used every- 


1 LVITI ff. 


172 ART IN GREECE 


where. Statues and reliefs were incorporated into a building 
just as painting was, and they were used to decorate pediments, 
metopes and friezes. But they were also set up in hundreds 
in the open, in the temenos, and in public squares, and they 
needed no protection because they were durable by nature. 
But more profound causes reinforced those that were due to 
material circumstances. In northern lands the atmosphere is 
humid, outlines are blurred, colours vivid and varied, and 
every hue has a gamut of shades from very light to very dark, 
corresponding with the change of hour and the alteration of 
light. In the brilliant light of the south the outlines of things 
stand out in that limpid atmosphere with surprising sharpness, 
hills and mountains looking as though their edges had been 
cut out; but there is little variety in the colouring; the sea is 
a deep blue, but the details of the landscape are lost in one 
uniform tint. The south is luminous but its colour is to seek. 
Thus the Greek, coming under the influence of the country, 
must have been instinctively drawn to prefer line to colour, 
and sculpture to painting. Sculpture, likewise, is more in 
harmony with the Greek rationalistic mentality, because 
line, which is abstract, is more intellectual than colour, which 
appeals to the senses rather than to the mind. This is why 
even painting itself is lmear among the Greeks; it is a coloured 
drawing with very clear, sharp contours and firm, clean lines: 
it is the painting of a sculptor not of a colourist. Line is what 
the painter seeks as his supreme aim in art; is not the rivalry 
of Protogenes and Apelles characteristic, each one endeavour- 
ing with all the ingenuity at his command to outdo the other 
in fineness of line? For a long while the colours are flat, 
because modelling and chiaroscuro are recent acquisitions. 
The material, by its specific qualities, exercises a great 
influence on a work of art. The Greek artist reveals his 
esthetic ideas by his choice of the material he works in by 
preference. Evolution in the process of time causes him to 
give up soft materials for harder ones. At first his hand, 
still uncertain, fashions statues and temples out of wood. 
Stone comes next; easily worked limestone is used in Doric 
buildings from the 7th century, as in tle earliest sculptures 
on the Acropolis in Athens (end of the 7th and beginning of 
the 6th century).' It is not a favourable medium for a work 


+ LXXII, LXXVIII, LAXX, LXXXIX-XC, XCIV-V. 


<< ae — 


BRANCHES OF ART 173 


of art owing to its defects and its lack of homogeneousness 
in texture which tempt the artist to a rough and slipshod 
mode of work. Marble takes its place;' statuary yields its 
earliest example of marble in the second quarter of the 6th 
century (Moscophoros of the Acropolis);? the Alemeonide 
use it for the facade of the temple at Delphi (536-515) and, 
about 520, the Athens Pisistratide employ it in the enlarged 
Hekatompedon. In the 5th century the temples of Apheza 
at Aigina, and of Zeus at Olympia, are still of limestone 
which the architect uses according to his resources. But the 
Parthenon and the Attic temples are of Pentelic marble, and 
marble henceforth is the material which the artist holds most 
beautiful and most worthy of him both in sculpture and 
architecture. 

The Greeks alone understood the beauty of marble. 
No other land of antiquity attached such importance to the 
choice of plastic material, and they carved indifferently in 
granite, in the hard diorite of Egypt, and the sandstone and 
rough limestone of Cyprus and Etruria. After the experi- 
ments of the Jonians* the Greek made his final choice; every- 
where he adopts marble, whether he has it to his hand or is 
obliged to send for it from afar. He asks from it that his 
work shall endure, that it shall prove resistant to his chisel, 
because the stone must be neither too easy, like clay, nor too 
rebellious, like granite, but should exercise the hand of the 
artist without tiring it, and permit him to gouge with that 
minute detail and precision which limestone and wood forbid. 
He also asks from it the beauty of its homogeneous texture 
and fine grain, the smooth surfaces it offers to the eye, its 
whiteness, and, in the warm Parian marble, its translucency. 
Since the supreme aim of art was to reproduce the human 
form, the artist realized that marble was specially suited for 
rendering flesh, particularly the smooth flesh of woman, and 
to give the illusion that it was alive, and that is why the 
Ionians, who were pioneers in its use, carved their smiling 
-Korai in marble, just as, later on, Praxiteles, that master 
of women’s and youths’ figures, preferred marble to bronze. 


1 CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘‘ Sculptura;”” LXXXIV, vol. viii, p.161; LXXVIII, 
pp. 101, 127. 

* LXXVIII, pp. 129, 135. 

8 See above, p. 128. 


174 ART IN GREECE 


Bronze' was known from very early days, but the Aigeans 
never modelled big statues and their figurines are always 
cast solid. Abandoning the old process of sphyrelata, in 
which hammered plates of metal are riveted to a “ bridge ”’ 
of wood, Rhoecus and Theodorus of Samos, towards the middle 
of the 6th century, introduced hollow casting from Egypt 
and gave to Greece a new technique which was destined to 
bring fresh life into plastic art. Large hollow-cast bronze 
statues became common, and some of the greatest Greek 
artists, Pythagoras, Myron, Polyclitus, Phidias and Lysippus 
were bronze-workers. Bronze renders the artist’s ideas more 
faithfully than marble; it perpetuates without the smallest 
alteration the clay model in whose easily and quickly worked 
plastic substance the artist shaped his thought; it avoids 
that rough preparatory reduction of the stone by which 
the model risks alteration; it permits a boldness of pose 
impossible in. stone; like marble, it endures; it allows of 
minutely detailed work being done at will with the burin; 
finally, its sombre tone and polished surface admirably 
render the masculine body—the athlete’s body tanned by 
exercise—and it makes a sharper silhouette than marble.” 

Marble and bronze are the two principal plastic materials 
of Greece. Chryselephantine statuary, of very early origin, 
inspires masterpieces such as the Athena Parthenos and the 
Olympian Zeus. But its high cost restricted its use to the 
rare occasions on which an exceptional testimony to the 
piety of the faithful was to be offered to the gods, and when 
the statue itself was to serve as a monetary reserve. Difficult 
in technique, fragile, and demanding constant upkeep and 
repair, it runs counter to Greek taste which seeks endurance, 
homogeneity and sincerity in a work of art, and which marvels 
at this rich outward appearance that hides a miserable in- 
terior. ‘‘ On the outside,’’ exclaims Lucian, “‘ it is Poseidon, 
trident in hand; it is Zeus all bright with gold and ivory. 
But look within: levers, wedges, iron bars, nails traversing 
the machine from one part to another, bolts, pitch, dust and 
other things equally shocking to the view—that is what you 
will find there.” 

In the Hellenistic period technique became more and more 
refined; the artist brought hard materials into use, and the 

1 OLXXXYV, s.v. ‘‘ Statuaria Ars.”’ 2 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 172. 


BRANCHES OF ART 175 


growing luxuriousness drove him to choose rare and shining 
stone. Statues and statuettes were sculped in crystal, 
chalcedony, topaz and glass; images of negroes or of Serapis 
of the infernal regions were carved in dark basalt, in black 
marble, or in dark-coloured rocks; porphyry, which had begun 
to come into use in the second century B.c., was employed 
to imitate Satyrs ruddy with wine. Materials of different 
colours were used together, thus obtaining a rich natural 
polychromy of which chryselephantine statuary had provided 
an earlier example. Realism, which transformed the types 
of former days, introduced a greater variety into the use of 
statuary material which it was desired should imitate nature 
more closely. 

The artist modelled figurines in clay’ which were a cheap 
‘substitute for marble and bronze statues, and also vases that 
were less costly than those of metal. Cyprus, Etruria and 
Rome readily demanded large statues of it, but Greece only 
rarely practised this kind of statuary, in archaic times and 
in the closing period of her existence.* In temples, the orna- 
ment of the high parts such as acroteria, gargoyles and ante- 
fixee, was carried out in terra cotta when the building was 
still of wood or limestone, but this yields place gradually to 
marble.’ Economic circumstances occasionally dictate an 
earthen statue, or even a plaster one, such, for example, as 
that made by Theocosmus of Megara during the Pelopon- 
nesian war. But the artist early recognized that clay, which 
is too ductile, held out no promise of progress, that it becomes 
deformed in the baking and that his intentions may be be- 
trayed, that it is too humble an agent for the magnification 
of gods and men. Nevertheless, during Hellenistic times 
and in order to supply the wants of a private clientele avid 
for luxury and pleasure—princes who loved ostentation, and 
towns that kept up a mutual rivalry—it was necessary to 
produce much and to produce rapidly whilst at the same 
time satisfying at a small cost the new taste which attached 
greater importance to external brilliancy and to appearances 
than to sincerity. Clay, which could be rapidly worked, and 
whose first cost is insignificant, was in high favour, and one 
even sees a genuine renaissance of plastic art in clay, which 
flourished in archaic times but which the classic age had 


1 CV ff. * LXVI-VII. 


176 ART IN GREECE 


abandoned. Soft limestone, which had not been employed 
since the 6th century, also came into use; stucco and plaster 
were used to render certain details, for modelling reliefs and 
statues, and the busts of poets and celebrated writers adorn- 
ing libraries and studios were often of this material. Even 
wax itself was used in statuary. 

The choice of material is thus guided by profound reasons 
which bring out the general characters of Greek art. En- 
durance was demanded of the material. The temple, the 
everlasting abode of the god; the statue, the substitute for 
divine or mortal man, must resist the attacks of time and 
insure to the divinity a perpetual homage, to the faithful 
his constant benediction and protection, and to the author 
imperishable glory. Thanks to the desire for perfection, 
that hardness was asked for from the material which was 
calculated to exercise the artist’s hand and permit him to 
realize fresh and unceasing progress, instead of holding him 
back in consequence of an easy routine such as that practised 
in Cyprus and Etruria, where the too soft material renders such 
technical education impossible. Beauty is also required of 
it, because the material was appreciated for its own sake even 
when unworked: the architect leaves his walls bare without 
plaster; are not the walls in the Propylea beautiful in them- 
selves, in their marble, and in the precision with which the 
stone is arranged? That is why polychromy retreats as 
marble appears... The wooden and limestone temples, and 
statues in soft stone, are entirely covered with a coat of 
variegated colour, but the buildings and statues in marble 
now show only a discreet polychromy which is partial and 
not total; the flesh of the statue keeps its hue of the marble 
which is at the most warmed up by “ ganosis.” Homogeneity 
is also demanded. ‘The statue is entirely of marble or entirely 
of bronze, and gold and ivory figures are the exception. At 
most, a few details such as the eyes, the curls of the hair, orna- 
ments, swords, lances and cuirasses are occasionally added 
in some other material. Sincerity. likewise, is required. 
The material presents itself such as it really is, and there is 
no attempt to deceive the eye. The gilding and silvering of 
terra cotta figurines is a more recent Hellenistic and Roman 
process. The Egyptians and Atgeans in their architecture 


1 LXXVIII, pp. 79, 316, 


BRANCHES OF ART 177 


and ceramics had already imitated stone in painting, but 
this delusive expedient had to wait until the Hellenistic 
and Roman period for its revival. These details reveal the 
feeling for proportion and fittingness in Greek art. Very 
precious or very rare materials are not employed, but, on 
the other hand, neither is the use of too common materials, 
such as clay, admitted; marble and bronze constituted a 
happy mean. 

The artist for a long while attempted to carve his statue 
free-hand from the stone, without the aid of a model.! This 
appeared later. The sculptors of the pediments at Olympia 
would appear to have used small models conceived as reliefs, 
and the authors of the pediments at Epidaurus (4th century)” 
and of the Korai of the Erechtheum, reproduced large and 
- earefully executed models. Whereas bronze-casting secures 
the immediate and exact reproduction of the clay model, 
the sculptor is obliged to reduce to it slowly in stone, and 
to interpose this preparatory work between the first crystalliza- 
tion of his inspiration and the final result. But the Greek , 
artist undertook all stages of the work himself; he did not © 
give himself over to the marble-carver who, in modern art, 
shapes the block, and points it up, leaving to the creator 
the final touches only. These intermediaries and mathe- 
matical pointing are not employed in Greece before the Hellen- 
istic period;* the work of art retains a freshness and sincerity 
which such processes can but impair. 

There is a mutual reaction of materials. Bronze and 
marble techniques exert a reciprocal influence on one another; 
clay working, essential for the model, can be recognized in the 
bronze statues and sometimes even in the stone; and, possibly, 
at the beginning the processes of wood sculpture, exercised 
some influence on the appearance of images carved in soft 
stone and marble.* | 

The artist, having chosen the form of art he will practise, 
the material he will work in, goes on to realize his subject: 
he has to transcribe the human body, which is his ideal, either 
in repose or in action, nude or draped, isolated or in a group. 


1 CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘‘ Sculptura.”’ | 

2 LXII, vol. ii, p. 195. 

3 Furtwaengler, Statuencopien in Altertum; VI, vol. i, p. 383. 
4 VI, vol. ii, p. 265. 


12 


178 ART IN GREECE 


Many problems now confront him whose solution he found 
only after long experimental effort. They are as follow: 


1. Pose; 

2. Anatomy; 

3. Drapery; 

4. Co-ordination of parts: synthetic view, rhythm, 
symmetria, harmony, proportion; 

5. Modification in the appearance of the object due to 
distance and atmosphere: foreshortening, perspective, model- 
ling, chiaroscuro; 

6. Composition: groups, ete. 


CHAPTER II 
POSE 


Tue human being has got to be posed, to be given some kind 
of attitude, and his external contour—his general silhouette— 
has to be traced before the rendering of his muscles or drapery 
can be attempted, or before consideration can be given to 
the question of grouping him with his compeers. 

The most ancient Greek plastic works! are the ivory idols 
found in the Dipylon tombs at Athens (9th to 8th centuries) 
and the crude bell-shaped clay statuettes of Boeotia. Their 
barbaric quality is surprising when we know that, many 
centuries earlier, Augean artists had known how to render the 
human body with truth and boldness in poses full of action, 
in the round (Knossos acrobat), in relief (the Boxers’ Vase 
from Haghia Triada), and in line (frescoes); that they had 
already observed human anatomy very closely (Knossos torso), 
and such details as veins and nails (Knossos acrobat). 

The Dorian invasion had plunged art into native bar- 
barism again, throwing it back some thousands of years— 
almost to the point to which Neolithic peoples had brought 
it (before 3000 B.c.). Is there very much difference between 
the statuettes of the Attic Dipylon and those yielded by the 
eneolithic horizons at Pheestos and Knossos, or the eneolithic 
idols of the Cyclades? The body is merely silhouetted 
without any interior detail, is rigid and lifeless with the arms 
stretched down the sides, and undetached from the body, 
and the legs unseparated. This schema belongs to all art in 
its earliest stages, whether ancient or modern. The nearest 
relatives of the first Greek sculptures are the statues made 
by the present populations of Africa or Oceania. Art every- 
where felt the same constraints and had to submit to the 
same conventions; beginning with crude uniformity it only 
gradually differentiated its productions according to race 


1 LXXXIV, vol. vii, p. 142. 
179 


180 ART IN GREECE 


and country. Yet it was these shapeless dolls that fore- 
shadowed Hellenic perfection (Fig. 20). 

What did the artist desire to convey when he made such 
figures? His intention was not to show the human body such 
as it really is, representing its muscles, drapery, expression 

and varied poses truthfully. These 
were not only problems too hard 
i for his rudimentary knowledge to 
solve, but they had no interest for 
him. Art everywhere began as a 
writing; in it the image was but an 
ideogram of the human body. It 
sufficed that the spectator should 
recognize the very simple idea it 
was intended to express. This was 
sometimes the notion of a god re- 
a SANE OUR ts ceiving homage, protecting human 
Apric HYDRIA oF Ana. DPeings, or present in his sanctuary 
LATUS, 8TH CENTURY. where his statue was set up, or in 
the grave where the figurine was 
deposited; or the notion of the faithful who offered his own 
effigy as an ex voto. Or else it was the idea of a goddess 
whose fruitful and maternal character was emphasized by 
showing her holding her breasts in her hands or carrying an 
infant in her arms. | 

The image seemed to say to him who contemplated it: I am 
the god, I am the faithful, Iam the dead. For this there was 
no need for complicated poses or exact details; an inert 
silhouette, the simplest of gestures—a schema, in short— 
sufficed to evoke the idea. 

The types were indeterminate. The same external pre- 
sentment served indifferently for gods and mortals, for the 
living and the dead. The intentions of the donor determined 
the sense to be given to the image, to the cult statue, the 
effigy of the dead, or the ex voto of a worshipper. Up to 
the end of the 6th century, the Kouroi* and Korai? repeated 
the same type, and it was external details alone, such as the 
circumstance of their discovery in a sanctuary or on a tomb, 
or else inscriptions, which permitted them to be denominated 
with some degree of accuracy as Apollo or the mortal deceased, 

+ LXVIII. 2 LXXVIII-IX. 


orn, 


wPe.e 


ePae, 


Peees 


ABBY - Reet. 


‘prin 
Vv 


POSE 181 


as Aphrodite or the feminine worshipper. This general 
indeterminateness of the earliest times still persisted, in part, 
up to the 5th century. 

One great technical rule inflexibly regulates all primitive 
art, and the art of Greece is no exception. This is the rule of 
*“frontality.”? It obliged the sculptor 
to conceive his statue in such manner 
as to be viewed exclusively from the 
front, and it caused him to stereotype 
the figure in a rigid attitude in such 
fashion that a vertical plane cuts it in 
two symmetrical halves, and, passing 
through the root of the nose, the 
mouth, the umbilicus, and the pudenda, . 
-. undergoes deviation neither to the | 
right nor the left. In this vertical 
plane there is no flexure, no torsion, 
no inclination of the torso, except 
from before or behind. It is impos- 
sible under such conditions to give 
life to a statue, to render those 
thousand modifications of form that 
action brings to the body, or to engage 
it in common action with other figures. os 
This immobile body remained what it 
had been at the beginning, an ideo- 
gram, a geometrical abstraction. The 
only movement possible is one that 
does not disturb this inflexible torso 
and pelvis—action which bends the .. 
arms in a forward, backward, or side- owe | 
ways direction, or that moves the aes 
legs, one of which is advanced. But 
this movement entails no such reper- Fig. 21. Fronrairy. 
cussion on the muscles as ought to be TENEA Kouros. 
present (Fig. 21). 

The gestures are lacking in expression, as with all primi- 
tives. The artist does not know what to do with these arms 


1 Deonna, ‘*‘ L’indétermination primitive et la différenciation pro- 
gressive,” Rev. d’Ethnographie et de Sociologie, 1912, iii, p. 22; VI, 
vol. ii, p. 415. 

2 CLXXVI, p. 9; VI, vol. ii, p. 167. 


mes 


182 ART IN GREECE 


and legs, and the image stands as gawkishly before him as 
a present-day peasant in front of a camera. Its arms hang 
by its sides, or it crosses them on its chest; it does not yet 
know how to look easy and natural or how to evince life in its 
attitude by some significant action which would break the 
monotony. 

Plastic art is still ignorant of how to give some meaning 
to these inert limbs or to make them express an action or a 
thought—a problem which the 5th century will have the 
honour of solving. Up till that period gesture is almost 
meaningless. The arms hang by the sides or are advanced 


slightly, and sometimes the hands hold some attribute. That 


is all. Drawing and relief, and the statues that issue from 
drawing, alone had the knowledge at the time to co-ordinate 
arms and legs in some definite movement, and this was be- 
cause they were governed by other rules. 

It was a technical constraint which embarrassed the artist. 
He had not yet arrived even at mastering his obstinate 
material, and it was the material which mastered the hand of 
the artist. He was afraid of breaking his stone if he tried 
bold gestures; he prudently kept the arms undetached from 
the body throughout their length, thus getting support for 
them, and he joins the legs together. 

None the less, the artist achieved some progress as dine 
went on. Gradually the arms became detached, till at last 
only a light tenon united the hand to the sides, and might 
even be absent, leaving the hand free. The rigid arm flexes 
at the elbow as it is advanced. The Ptodon Kouros, the Piom- 
bino Apollo, the last-comers in this series (end of the 6th 
century)! testify to the progress accomplished. The legs 
also are separated. One is put forward, timidly to begin 
with, then more boldly. It is always the left leg; the only 
exceptions are the rare statues conceived as pendants, in 
which alternate legs are symmetrically advanced (Pl. VII.). 
One asks oneself the reason for this monotony, all the more 
curious that it is in opposition to the prescriptions of Greek 
religion, in which the left is unlucky. An imitation of 
Egyptian statues has been suggested, since these always 
advance the left leg. It is possible, however, that it is a 


1 LXVIII, p. 157, No. 31; p. 274, No. 102. 


PLATE VII 


SUNIUM KOUROS. (Athens Museum) 
6th Century 


[ face p. 182 


POSE 183 


question of a spontaneous feature of primitive art both in 
Greece and in Egypt." 

In the course of this evolution the greater or lesser skill 
of the artist, and the material employed, introduce slight 
variants; bronze, for example, permitting greater freedom of 
gesture than marble. 

Within these narrow limits Greek artists seek such diver- 
sity as is permissible. The number of poses can be but few. 
The erect human type comprises two series. One was the 
youth, nearly always completely nude, rarely clothed (the 
Samos statues,” and statues of the Acropolis), advancing 
the left leg: his arms are glued to his sides or are slightly 
advanced, usually without holding any attribute, and with 
the fist closed. The other was the female figure draped in 
the Dorian peplos or the Ionian chiton and himation; her 
arms hang inert or one hand gathers up the folds of her dress 
while the other holds some offering. These, with slight 
variations in clothing, the pose of the arms, or the attributes, 
are the two chosen types the artist repeats up to the end of 
the 6th century, and which he tirelessly multiplies because 
they can be adapted indifferently to any purpose, the nude 
male doing equally well as a god, as the dead, or as the faith- 
ful, and the draped female figure serving as well for a goddess 
as for a worshipper. These are the two types to-day known 
under the only generic names which would cover them all— 
Kouroi,* that is ‘‘ youths,’”’ and Korai, that is ‘‘ maidens.’’? 

_ The draped human figure seated on a throne—the emblem 
of dignity of gods, highborn mortals, and the heroized dead— 
is less frequent.®° A straight torso, conjoint legs, and arms 
generally lying flat along the thighs, compasses this attitude 
(Fig. 22). It was not to acquire the suppleness and the nuances 
proper to life before the first quarter of the 5th century, 
when Endceus—if he is really the author—carved the Athena 
of the Acropolis museum (about 479).’ 


1 Deonna, ‘* L’influence égyptienne sur lattitude du type statuaire 
debout dans l’archaisme grec,”’ Fesigabe fur O. Blumner, 1914, p. 102. 

2 Curtius, AM, 1906, Pl. x. 

3’ LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 631. 

4 LXVIII. 5 LXXVII-IX. 

6 Mobius, ‘‘ Die Darstellung des sitzenden Menschen in der antiken 
Kunst,’’ Diss, Marburg, 1921; cf. AA, 1921, 36, p. 266. 

7 LXXIX, p. 445. 


184 ART IN GREECE 


There were also, here and there, a few animal statues— 
horses and dogs. 
These types are to be found from one end of Greece to the 
other, from Ionia to Sicily. But the horseman, more rare, is 
almost entirely limited to Attica, 
where he characterized the social 
rank of the Athenian trzeitc.* 
These were the few statuary 
types realized by the artist from 
the early days up to the end of 
the 6th century. This monotony 
_ itself had its uses. Since he did 
not have to dissipate his efforts 
on attitudes. and movements 
which were forbidden to him by 
frontality, the artist could turn 
, his attention to other problems 
Fic. 22. Srarue or Cuares, Such as anatomy and drapery, 
BriTIsHh MUSEUM, 5TH CEN- and, imperfect as his under- 
TURY. THE ARCHAIC SEATED : . . 
anealay standing of them still was, it 
enabled him later on to realize 
the human figure correctly in detail and as a whole. This 
limitation was a very good thing for him, because he was 


capable of freeing himself from it precisely at the moment — 


when, at the beginning of the 5th century, it was becoming 
a hindrance to him, and when, his hand and his vision being 
sure, and having gradually corrected the old-time errors, he 
was ready to pass on to further investigations and attempts. 

Attitudes are more or less free and correct according as 
to whether the medium was drawing or sculpture in the 
round; drawing was ahead of plastic art because it had not 
had the same technical difficulties to overcome. It is, indeed, 
easier to trace bold gestures on a plane surface than to render 
them in volume in an intractable material. Though the 
Dipylon image-makers only knew how to make lifeless dolls 
with arms glued to their sides and conjoined legs, the vase- 
painters could already animate their figures, naive though 
these might be, introducing action and movement. Relief 
shared in this advance made by drawing and which was 
maintained throughout the story of Greek art, being especially 

1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 634. 


POSE 185 


marked in the formative period or up to about the end of the 
6th century. While the painter painted on the bodies of his 
vases and the sculptor cut in his reliefs the most animated 
scenes of violent combat with figures in the most complicated 
attitudes, the statuary, who conceived his statue frontally, 
clung to his ancient schema in which the figure is frozen into 
the most utter immobility. 

Despite his greater freedom the draughtsman, too, has 
to submit to certain universal conventions which prevent 
the exact reproduction of reality. The projection of volume 
in its various aspects in a single plane entails foreshortening. 
The artist was still incapable of reducing volume to this 
single plane. Furthermore, his mind refuses to admit it. 
What he wishes to render is not reality accidentally modified 
by pose, environment or atmosphere, but reality as it actually 
is, constituted by its entire elements. In movement, certain 
parts may be hidden by certain other parts; the chest seen 
from the side may become narrower than when viewed from 
the front and both pectorals may not be visible; the eye, 
seen in profile, is likewise diminished in size. But the artist 
has no intention of perpetuating these temporary illusions; 
each part, on the contrary, must be given in its most charac- 
teristic aspect, the one which shows it most clearly and at its 
largest. ‘The body seen from the front entails some difficult 
foreshortening, as, for example, of the nose and the feet. 
Placed in profile, however, the face is quite clear and the 
general silhouette emphasizes the incurved waist, the salient 
buttocks and the sinuosities of the legs. The image is thus 
clearer and its execution made more easy. That is why, 
in reliefs and paintings, with very few exceptions denoting 
bold but still faulty attempts, human figures up to the end 
of the 6th century are placed in profile, as it were filing past 
the spectator. 

Nevertheless, certain details of this silhouette have to 
be rendered full-face, always with the intention of making 
them more comprehensible and avoiding foreshortening—the 
large, open, almond-shaped eye, for example, and the chest 
showing both pectorals. The figure as a whole is thus a 
mosaic of elements seen under different aspects, some in 
profile and others full-face, an unreal mixture to be found 


1 CLXXX. 


186 ART IN GREECE 


in all inexperienced art and which serves for all kinds of 
forms, living or otherwise. The Egyptian and Eastern 
artist maintained this convention to the very end, and only 
made timid efforts to free himself from it; the Greek artist, 
by inventing foreshortening, was to get rid of it altogether. 
Statuary, conceived so as to be viewed from the front, 
could only represent the human body in complete repose; 
frontality prohibited all action. Yet the artists of the 
first half of the 5th century pushed their study of move- 
ment very far; the Aégina warrior, falling backwards, is an 
amazingly bold ‘‘ snapshot ”; the art of Myron and Pytha- 
goras is enamoured of violent action, as was the vase-painting 
of Euphronius, Douris, and Phintias at the same period. 
Whence came this new possibility for plastic art? It came 
from drawing and the conventions of drawing. 
These, in effect, also regulate certain works done in the 
round, in which the artist expresses a movement, some 
violent piece of action impossible 


ht es to compass in a statue con- 
Y i ~ ceived under the rule of front- 
ary ee ality. In this case the Statue is 


aN / a sort of relief with contours, as 
| it were, cut out, that is to say 


Be it accepts the conventions of re- 
a lief and drawing. The Nike of 
Sy Archermus of Chios (6th century) 


flies swiftly’: her torso is frontal 
set on legs seen in profile. In 
the Pisistratidee pediments of the 
Hekatompedon in Athens the 
giant Enceladus, overthrown at 
Athena’s feet, twists his torso to 
a frontal pose on legs in profile 
(Fig. 24).2 Even in the 5th cen- 
tury the sculptor will not have 
succeeded entirely in ridding 
himself of this convention, and the Diskobolos of Myron 
(about 450) is an example of this persisting constraint (Fig. 28). 
But it is thus through the intermediation of drawing that 
action makes its way into modelling in the round. Without 
1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 300. 2 Ibid., p. 5538. 


Fic. 28. MyRon’s DISKOBOLOS. 


POSE 187 


such help, it could never have got beyond the lifeless figure. 
Further, representation in profile, inherent in drawing, tends 
to favour grouping and the common action of several figures, 
and modelling in the round which, in frontal statues, was 
capable only of setting people up, awkwardly, in a row, 
profits by it. 

Statues in the round thus derive from two different 
origins: one class is conceived frontally and in repose; the 
other in action, as a projection. From the first are derived 
all those works throughout Greek art which show the human 
figure not in action but relaxed in tranquillity, and the 


Fi. 24. PISISTRATIDZ PEDIMENT OF THE H&EKATOMPEDON IN ATHENS. 
ATHENA AND ENCELADUS. 


ancient Kouroi of the 6th century are the direct ancestors 
of the 5th-century calm effigies of athletes, as also of the 
nonchalant ephebi of Praxiteles. The second, the statuary 
of action, governed by the rules of drawing, inspires small 
archaic bronzes, pediment statues, and isolated statues (Nike 
of Archermus) in the 6th century. The work of all those 
Greek artists who love violent action, such as Pythagoras 
and Myron in the 5th century, and, much later, Agasias with 
his fighting warrior (1st century B.c.),' can claim descent 
from it. It is a mistake to suppose that the bold gesture 
and the angry manner of the Tyrannicides (477) mark 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 672. 


188 ART IN GREECE 


progress from the peaceable attitude of ephebus No. 698 of 
the Acropolis... These two works, very nearly contem- 
poraneous, belong to two distinct series which evolved 
independently of one another. Myron’s claim to the glory 
of having created the instantaneous pose is also only a late 
invention, because violent action existed before his day; 
he did no more than to import into large isolated statues 
what had hitherto been especially limited to relief, pediment 
figures and small bronzes. : 

Nevertheless, action in statues in the round is an inno- 
vation made by Greek art. In Egypt and Mesopotamia it 
appears only in relief and painting, statues being frozen in 
the calm of frontality from which they knew not how to 
escape. These lands did not seek to render the variety of 
attitude and action proper to real life, as Greece did. 

One of the characteristic features of Greek art is its desire 
for truth. Even in archaic times it bears witness to this, 
though still held back by conventions. Doubtless the statues 
are frontal, and uniformly advance the left leg, but the interior 
details of the muscles bear witness to this will to get closer and 
closer to reality, and by oft-repeated attempts, to eliminate 
errors of vision and handcraft. The archaic work of the 
6th century shows a curious mixture of truth and illogical 
convention. Witness, for example, the kneeling schema of 
a race or of flight (Hoplitodromus stele, Athens; Sambon 
bronze, Nike of Archermus, etc.). Yet instantaneous photo- 
graphy has revealed that the Greeks faithfully copied one 
phase of a leap, the moment in which the jumper, clearing 
the obstacle, tucks his legs under him. Accustomed to the 
sights of the palestra and the games, they noted a swift 
attitude which our modern eyes, unused to these scenes, for 
long failed to recognize.” | 

This innate feeling for reality triumphed at the close of 
the 6th century. The artist, whose hand had become more 
skilled, now rebelled against the conventional vision of 
former days, and he substituted for it a correct view of 
reality. He gave up the old supports of his primitive inex- 
perience which had served their purpose but which, as he 
persevered, only hindered him. 


1 LXXVIII, pp. 438, 452. 
2 Deonna, ‘‘ L’archéologue et le photographue,”’ RA, 1922, xvi, p. 85. 


POSE 189 


Towards 500 the old rule of frontality ceased to exercise 
its despotic sway. It became apparent to the Greeks that 
these petrified dummy-like figures were unnatural, and that 
real life entailed a thousand flexures and torsions, that the 
plane passing through the middle of a figure is rarely vertical 
but curved and broken according to the attitude taken, that 
the body does not rest uniformly on both 
legs but sometimes on one and some- 
times on the other, and that as a result 
one hip is raised higher than the other; 
that the two feet are not necessarily 
glued to the ground; and that the head 
is not always presented full-face to the 
spectator. As witness an ephebus’ head 
_ inthe Acropolis museum, earlier than 480, 
called the Blond Ephebus! because of 
the traces of colour still to be seen in 
the hair, or the Sulker, because of the 
severe, even morose, expression of the 
mouth. Although detached from its 
trunk it demonstrated that this body 
was no longer frontal, because it is bent 
and turned to the right. Or witness 
ephebus 698 of the Acropolis museum,” 
very nearly contemporaneous with it 
(Fig. 25): the weight of the body is car- 
ried on one leg, and the other is flexed, 
while the body is slightly turned. Front- 
ality is broken by such little changes, ; 
ae the vertical plane that aforetime dpReets Ponekias 
divided the body in two symmetrical (ATHENS). THE 
halves now undergoes much torsion. And = FRU NT ARIEDY 18 
this is big with consequence. Because 
it means that variety of attitude, carrying with it variety 
of subject, is introduced into the monotonous series of Kouroi 
and Korai of the 6th century. Legs, heads and trunks, 
liberated from the old ankylosis, are now to unbend in all 
directions. These are no longer indeterminate figures, as 
of old, for whom a generic name sufficed; they are indi- 
vidualities each one of whom accomplishes a definite act 


1 LXXVIIL, p. 382. 2 Ibid., p. 452, 


“ans os 


( _-be--- 


190 ART IN GREECE 


in a particular attitude. Should we attribute this innovation 
to some bold master, perhaps to the ancient Ageladas of 
Argos,' whose example was soon followed by the rest ? One 
is more fain to believe that this was necessary progress, and 
that it was realized by the common efforts of the generation 
of artists working in the first quarter of the 5th century 
(Figs. 27 and 28). This breach in frontality, in effect, would 


WwW 
ee 


TOSS 
y \ 


voy 


Fic. 26. KEPHEBUS ON A CUP ATTRIBUTED TO ONESIMUS. 


seem to be an inevitable stage in artistic evolution, because 
we note it also in Christian art as it emerges from the 
Romanesque period.” 

The Greek was the only artist in all antiquity to break 
this frontality. . His confréres of Egypt and the East were 
no more able to free themselves from this constraint than 
in drawing they could achieve that other Greek conquest, 


1 LXII, vol. i, p. 316. 2 VI, vol. iii. p. 157. 


POSE 19] 


so intimately linked with it, the ability to foreshorten. For 
thousands of years they acquiesced in this frontality rule, 
which did not disappear for good before the year 500. When 
Roman art, which was heir to the art of Greece, declined 
and began in the third century a.p. to sink gradually back 
into barbarism, frontality reappeared: figures lost their 


Ay 
fr ow 


— 

\S ies 
j 

S\ sf 

Ps pn 

Fy ——."  (-% 

~ / Ba eet Fe 


SBa aww. 


Fic.27. Pomprit APouwo, Fic. 28. Tur STEPHANUS ATH- 


NapPLes MusEum. Copy 
OF AN ORIGINAL OF ABOUT 
450 B.C. 


LETE. COPY (END OF IST CEN- 
TURY B.C.) OF AN ORIGINAL OF 
THE 5TH CENTURY, VILLA AL- 


BANI, ROME. 


suppleness and once more were presented full-face, and legs 
became stiff; this was an instinctive return to those archaic 
conventions from which artists with such pains had freed 
themselves. Even in the height of the Greek classical period 
one finds sporadic examples of frontality: it sufficed for the 
artist to be inexperienced for him to come under its sway, 


192 ART IN GREECE 


so inherent is it in the early stages of art in every land and 
in every age.! 

Hardly noticeable at first, the raising of one hip asserts 
itself more and more in a whole series of works (Figs. 25 to 29), 
both marbles and bronzes, posterior to 480: for example, 
the Selinus ephebus, Albani ephebus, the ephebus of the 
Olympeum in Athens, the Sciarra ephebus, Ligourio ephebus, 
the Apollo of the omphalos, ete.2 This movement is par- 
ticularly noticeable in the nude masculine figure, but one 
perceives it likewise beneath the feminine draperies. The 
skirt of certain statues of the first half of the 5th century, 
draped in the Dorian peplos, falls in stiff folds, in rigorously 
vertical fluting (the Hestia Giustiniani), but the artist soon 
found in the breaking of frontality a happy occasion to 
vary his effects, contrasting, with the old straight fluted 
folds on the supporting leg, drapery that is stretched tight 
over the advanced and flexed leg, and the Athenas of Phidias 
(Athena Lemnia, about 450; Athena Parthenos, 438), and 
the Korai of the Erechtheum (about 415) show the harmonious 
results to which this experimentation led.* 

It can be understood that another convention had to go 
at the same time. Why need it always be the left leg that 
is advanced ? This was not in accordance with nature. So 
the ephebus No. 698 of the Acropolis advanced his right 
leg, and several other figures of this period advanced the 
right leg by choice, as though in reaction against the old 
custom. Complete liberty of the limbs, at the artist’s will, 
and according to the requirements of his subject, had now 
been achieved. The leg may now be flexed in a forward, 
backward or sideways direction. All these variants of pose 
are to be found, the 5th-century artists choosing among 
them freely. The foot of the flexed leg may rest flat on the 
ground, a pose found throughout the 5th century, especially in 
the Phidian statues. The Argive school is rather prone to place 
the bent leg behind the other, and this pose is a favourite 
with Polyclitus. Gradually the foot comes to rest more and 
more lightly on the ground, and often it only just touches 
it with the tips of the toes. Pliny attributes the invention 
of this attitude to Polyclitus; it existed, however, long before 
his day and is due to his forerunners at the beginning of the 


1 VI, vol. ii, p. 167. 2 LXXIII, p. 62. 3 Ibid., p. 158. 


POSE 193 


5th century. This schema is already that of the statue 
which surmounted the base of Smikythus at Olympia (about 
460), a work by Glaucus and Dionysius of Argos;' the im- 
prints, in fact, prove that the left foot was placed flat and 
that the right, flexed to the rear, barely touched the ground. 
A charming figurine at the Louvre’ illustrates this attitude 
(Fig. 29). The body is supported on the 
left leg with the foot flat on the ground, 
but the right leg, flexed posteriorly, only 
touches the ground with the tips of the 
toes. Is this really, as it has been said, 
the attitude of walking beloved of Poly- 
clitus ? Is it not rather much more an 
attitude of repose, but treated with greater 
suppleness ? 

The arms of the Korai and Kouroi hung 
by their sides or were slightly raised, hold- 
ing some attribute or the folds of the 
drapery. ‘These were but a few stereotyped 
gestures without meaning. But now there 
is variety in all its thousand shades—the 
arms are bent in all directions according 
to the requirements of the subject and the 
necessities of rhythm. 

Despite this great freedom in pose, the 
artist concerns himself particularly in estab- 
lishing a rhythmic relation between the 
movements of arms and legs. This is a 
new feature of realism while it is also an 
esthetic effort to achieve harmony. In sat tie 3 ee, 
nature there is a cross-correspondence of Louvre. First 
alternately moving limbs: when the right HALF OF THE 5TH 
arm swings forward the left leg is at the Se ene 
rear; the movement of an opposing lower limb responds 
to that of the upper limb. The imagists of the 6th century 
did not trouble themselves about this alternation except 
in certain Korai to whose forward left leg there corre- 
sponds a right arm which is stretched forward. Now 
this ‘‘chiasmos ”’ becomes the rule: the arm and leg move- 
ments of either side of the body are opposed, balanced 


? LXXIII, p. 117. 2 Ibid., p. 119; MP, ae 110. 


aay 


194 ART IN GREECE 


in such a way that if we want to find the correspondence 
we must look for it diagonally (Figs. 30-31). Was Pytha- 
goras of Rhegium, who came to the fore about 490, the first 


(A f 


/ 
/ 
7 
i ate 
/ 4 | 
/ 
/ 
fe | 
\ 
La > | 
ee Panes 


Fic. 380. THE DORYPHOROS OF POLYCLITUS. 
CHIASMOS. 


to apply this chias- 
mos deliberately ?? 
The Valentini torso 
attributed to him? 
advanced the right 
shoulder relatively 
to the left, and the 
left knee relatively 
to. the right ain 
ephebus 692 of the 
Athens Acropolis 
(earlier than 480),° 
the movement of 
the right arm to the 
rear balanced that 
of the left leg to the 
front. At the same 
time the parts in- 
volved in action and 
inaction cross from 
above downwards, 
and from below up- 
wards, the typical 
formula of Polycli- 
tian art: in the 
Doryphoros, the ac- 
tive right leg sup- 
porting the body’s 
weight corresponds 
with the left arm 
carrying the spear, 
and the passive left 


leg, flexed, corresponds with the right arm which hangs inert. 
Chiasmos is not regularly observed till towards the middle 
of the 5th century. In the first half of this century many 
works escape its sway, such as the Atgina statues, the 
Tyrannicides, and the Marsyas of Myron, which advance 


1 OLXIV, p. 54. 2 Ibid., p. 57. 


3 LXXVIII, p. 458. 


POSE 


195 


arms and legs on the same side of the body. It is not 
observed in figure drawing, or in reliefs, and consequently 
it is not observed in work in the round that is derived 


from them (example: Opper- 
mann Heracles):' arms and 
legs advance or are with- 
drawn to the rear on the 
same side, which is necessi- 
tated by the frontal position 
of the shoulders and thorax, 
in order to avoid foreshorten- 
ing and contortion of the 
lower part of the body.’ 

In the old 6th-century 
schema the line of the shoul- 
ders is horizontal and rigor- 
ously parallel with that of 
the hips; when frontality is 
broken they are often op- 
posed one to the other, one 
raised and the other lowered. 
The Orestes of the Naples 
group,’ and the Stephanus 
athlete* lean their weight on 
the left leg, and the hip on 
this side is the higher; the 
line of the shoulders, how- 
ever, is still almost horizontal. 
But the Polyclitian statues 
are examples of the inverse 
obliquity of these two lines. 

The torso is turned in all 
directions according to the 
requirements of the subject, 
and the gestures of arms and 
legs modify its former uni- 
form appearance. 


Fre. 81. 
British Museum. KyYNISKOS OF 


WESTMACOTT EPHEBUS, 


POLYCLITUS (?). CHIASMOS, 


The Diskobolos of Myron, and the Louvre 


Pugilist? retain nothing whatever of the ancient naiveté. 


1 LXII, vol. i, p. 284. 
3 LXII, vol. ii, p. 662. 
5 CLXIV, p. 107. 


2 CLXIV, p. 54, note 3. 
4 Ibid., p. 661. 


196 ART IN GREECE 


The head no longer looks straight in front, but is turned 
to the right or the left, or it looks backwards or is bent 
forward or inclined to one side, and these various movements 
may be combined as in the Petrograd Eros' which lifts its 
curly head to the right. What progress has been made in 
accomplishing all these varieties in pose and attitude during 
the first half of the 5th century, thanks to the abandon- 
ment of frontality ! The stiffness of Kouroi and Korai has 
vanished: the artist henceforth can reproduce all the complex 
freedom of reality. 

Parallel with this abandonment of frontality in statuary, 
drawing acquired the knowledge of foreshortening,” the result 
of the same desire to represent reality as it is, thanks to 
closer observation. Formerly the artist adroitly evaded the 
difficulty of transcribing the alterations in the forms of 
objects on a plane surface. Isolated attempts, of which 
6th-century vase-painting shows naive examples, become 
more common and come to a head from the beginning of the 
5th century. They are helped by the new red-figure technique 
which, appearing about 520,° supplants the old black-figure 
technique. The dark image of the light background of the 
vase was generally obtained by the cast shadow method,* 
which gave faithful silhouettes of figures in profile but not 
of foreshortened or three-quarter poses; the interior details 
of the musculature could only be indicated approximately 
by incision and often incorrectly. Now that the image was 
done in light colour on the vase, a new precision was within 
the power of the draughtsman. And how interesting was 
this gradual achievement of foreshortening which the vases 
of the end of the 6th and beginning of the 5th century allow 
us to follow! Each detail merits attentive examination. 
The eye, for example, for long seen full-face in a head in 
profile, is for the first time correctly drawn by Onesimus. 
Torsos seen frontally are no longer set on legs in profile, 
but bend in all directions, forward and backward, and are 
seen in three-quarter and back views. There was faulty 
draughtsmanship, of course, for a long time, but this was 
gradually eliminated and Greek drawing came to have at its 


1 LXXIII, p. 80. 2 CLXXX. 


3 CXLIV, vol. x, p. 345; CXXXIX. 
4 CXLYV, pp. 576, 674; Pottier, REG, 1898, p. 355. 


POSE 197 


disposal a means of expression which was a title of glory 
because other artists of antiquity, remaining in their old 
rut, never sought to acquire it except under Hellenic influence. 

Statuary, already freed from frontality, also gained by 
this conquest of foreshortening, at all events those classes 
of statuary which comprise images deriving from drawing. 
The Athena of the Aigina pediments is still obedient to the 
old conventions: although placed full-face, her feet are in 
profile in order that they may be seen in all their amplitude, 
and that foreshortening may be avoided. These are the 
final reminiscences of archaic awkwardness. The conventions 
shackling both kinds of statuary disappear; whether in repose 
or in action the statue is no longer obedient to different 
principles, and truth alone is sought in both. 

Thus art threw off the shackles of former days from the 
beginning of the 5th century, and abandoned the schemas 
which had stood between it and reality. Variety succeeds 
monotony. It is no longer a matter of three or four un- 
alterable plastic types, but of figures in attitudes of every 
conceivable shade of variety—ephebi erect and in repose, 
differentiated from one another by the play of their limbs, 
crowning themselves with wreaths, encircling their heads 
with the victor’s chaplet, carrying a spear or a flagon of oil 
with which to anoint themselves; there are figures performing 
the most varied movements, from the most leisurely to the 
most rapid; figures seated at ease and without any of the 
stiffness of the Branchide.' Henceforth it is impossible to 
enumerate all the different themes; it is sufficient to realize 
how promising a road is opened up before the artist in both 
sculpture and drawing by these two immense steps forward 
achieved almost simultaneously—the breaking of frontality 
and the practice of foreshortening. 

In 5th-century statuary the erect human form is always 
active, even while in repose. Even without any definite 
action and while allowing the arms to hang inert, it is never- 
theless carried braced, on one leg, when the other is flexed, 
and it balances itself without any extraneous support. It 
is as though there were a secret desire to retain that mastery 
of self, that high dignity, which is characteristic of classic 
art. Together with inferior beings of easier manners, it is 


1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 268. 


198 ART IN GREECE 


the wounded and dying alone who seek some aid for their 
failing force, as, for example, the Philoctetes of Pythagoras 
of Rhegium (Valentini torso), the wounded man of Cresilas 
(Bavai bronze),? and the Amazon of Polyclitus (Berlin 
Amazon)® (Fig. 82). Very few are the poses that betoken 
a certain laisser-aller or bodily abandon. It is true that 
on a Peithinus cup (first quarter of the 5th century) one 
sees an erect ephebus leaning carelessly on a stick, one leg 
3 flexed to the rear and his hand on his hip,* 
and, in reliefs from the 6th century, figures 
in an analogous attitude (funerary stele 
of Orchomenos at Naples). In the Pan- 
athenaic frieze the old men lean on sticks. 
But in the round one can cite but few 
examples—the Doria Pamphili Aphrodite 
of Phidian style,? and the so-called Nar- 
cissus,° a funerary statue of the end of the 
5th century, leaning against a pillar. 

In the 4th century sculpture in the 
round adopts this as a general principle, 
to the point of making it a typical attitude 
of that period. Praxiteles made it his and 
derived from it the rhythm of his statues. 
The Apollo Sauroctonos (Fig. 33) leans his 
left arm against the tree up which the little 

beast climbs which he is about to pierce 
Fic. 82. THE with his arrow; the Satyr, laughing (Fig. 34), 
BERLIN AMAZON. i : 
PoLvcirrus, leans his elbow on a tree-trunk, just as the 
Hermes does who holds the infant Dionysus 
on his arm (Fig. 85). By raising or lowering this support, 
and by leaning the elbow, the raised or the lowered hand, 
even the shoulder, against it, the artist gets a series of new 
effects.’ 

The figure, rigid and vertical in its lines as conceived by 
the imagists of the 6th century, flexed its silhouette and made 
it sinuous in the 5th century when the frontality convention 
was broken and one hip was raised. In the 4th century, 
thanks to the support, the hip makes a gradually greater 


1 CLXIV, p. 57. 2 GBA, 1905, p. 204. 
° LXII, vol. i, p. 503. 4 CXXXVI, Pl. xxv. 
5 RM, 1901, Pl. i-ii. 6 LXIII, p. 180. 


CLIX, CLXII, CLXXII; LXII, vol. ii, p. 253. 


Bs 


in pele 
> et 


POSE 199 


salient and the curve of the external line is accordingly 
accentuated till the curve described from the shoulders to 
the ankles becomes serpentine. The centre of gravity is 
displaced; the vertical line passing through the middle of 
the head tends to fall no longer, as in the 5th century, straight 


Fic. 33. AProLtLo SAUROCTONOS Fic. 34. SATYR IN REPOSE 
OF PRAXITELES. OF PRAXITELES. 


to the feet, or between the feet, but outside the body alto- 
gether, a detail to be noted already in vase-paintings of the 
Meidias cycle. The human form no longer balances itself; 
take away the support and it must collapse. 

In the 5th century, as the feet supported the body 
naturally, the legs could not be crossed. Now that there 


200 ART IN GREECE 


are external supports, the movement of the legs becomes 
quite free: one foot may be advanced in front of the other 
(Sauroctonos, Satyr in repose), or one leg may cross the other 
(Satyr playing the flute, in the Louvre, School of Praxiteles).+ 
The general silhouette is 
once more changed: it 
seems to end in a point, 
and has no longer the firm 
stance of former days, and 
this tapering towards the 
base still further accen- 
tuates the marked salient 
of the hip and the undu-- 
lating line described by. the 
body as a whole. 

The arms also are care- 
less; if one is leaning on 
some support, the other 
may rest on the hip, with 
the back of the hand sup- 
ported on it (Satyr in re- 
pose), or, lifted to the head, 
may be lazily allowed to 
rest there. 

How are we to explain 
this altered vogue which 
introduced into Greek stat- 
uary a new note of care- — 
lessness and effeminacy ? 
To the austere art of the 
5th century succeeded that 
of the 4th, more human, 
less enamoured of dignity 
than of sweetness and 
sensuousness. The attitudes of the 5th century, though 
natural, still betray a suspicion of effort and tension; the 
easy attitudes of a body that is relaxed and that is content 
to be alive without seeking action, were neglected, though 
equally real and human. His attention diverted from action 
by sad political events and by the Athenian disaster which 

1 LXI, vol. ii, p. 452. 


- 
oe 
Prin 
~ 


‘ 
- ee 
‘ ‘ 
. 


Fic. 385. PRAXITELES’ OLYMPIAN 
HERMES. 


are, 


POSE 201 


resulted from the Peloponnesian war, and then by the Mace- 
donian conquest, the artist, like the citizen, turns his back 
on effort and seeks repose. Are we, however, to regard this 
as due to historical influences rather than simply to the 
instinctive development of art itself? Did not the artist 
choose this more supple and graceful rhythm simply because 
he had at his disposal new resources enabling him to vary 
his ancient schemas? Christian art, as a matter of fact, 
presents the same change. The 138th-century sculptor broke 
the frontality of the Romanesque statues just as his Greek 
predecessors at the beginning of the 5th century broke the 
frontal pose of the Kouroi and Korai; then, towards the 
14th century, as in the 4th century B.c., one hip is raised, 
even exaggeratedly, and from an analogous desire for a more 
supple line. Young girls and young women found this a 
graceful pose, and this raising of one hip, fashionable from 
about 1240, became universal towards 1300, to such a point, 
indeed, as to give the historian, as in Greece, a chronological 
criterion. This is not, as was once imagined, because this 
appearance is required by the curve of ivory; it is a necessary 
stage in the spontaneous development of sculpture, and 
Greece gives us the proof of it. In antiquity Greece alone 
arrived at this stage which flows logically from the breaking 
of the frontal pose: Hindu art borrowed this raising of one 
hip from the Praxitelian tradition; it even exaggerated it 
to excess in its images which sometimes “ bend into an arc 
the outline of their body ” (Foucher). 

The sculptors of the 4th century, the disciples of Praxi- 
teles, and the figurine modellers who, at Tanagra,” reflect 
the grace of the Attic master, sought simple, easy, careless 
poses inspired by real life in its calm and relaxed moments. 
But art at that very time became emotional, and so we also 
get attitudes bespeaking passion or pain, and gestures of 
ecstasy—heads lifted to heaven, and the heroes and the 
Maenad of Scopas.’ Nevertheless the old schemas were not 
abandoned and the Polyclitian rhythm persists, for example, 
in the athletic statuary of Lysippus (Agias of ‘Delphi, 
Apoxyomenos).* 

1 YI, vol. iii, p. 262. 2 OVII, CX-XI. 


3 OLIX, p36; CLXX; JDAI, 1918, xxxiii, p. 88. 
4 CLX, CLXVIII. 


202 ART IN GREECE 


The Hellenists did not introduce such characteristic 
innovations as those of the 5th and 4th centuries, despite 
their desire to renew art; the poses of the human body not 
being infinite in number, their predecessors had had the 
lion’s share. They carried on the earlier creations in a 
different spirit which we shall characterize later, and varied 
them in many subtle ways. However, we must note their ~ 
predilection for complicated attitudes, for difficult and skilful 
rhythms which raise knotty problems to 
be solved in statics and musculature 
and permit the artist to display his 
virtuosity—often, likewise, his subtlety. 
At Myrina' the terra cotta figurines 
show this predilection for contorted atti- 
tudes. If, during a long period, the 
artist rendered the flexion of the torso 
on the pelvis somewhat awkwardly (up 
to the Parthenon),” now he affected those 
attitudes in which the body twists itself- 
round on the axis of one leg (Fig. 36). 
The Callipygis Venus,’ the Satyr looking 
at his own tail,* the Hermaphrodite of 
the mirror,’ twist themselves about to 
see themselves from behind; the young 
woman would see how her dress falls at 
the back;® the sleeping Hermaphrodite 
on his couch stirs and turns in the excite- 
por sok bros le ment of his voluptuous dream.’ Exagger- 

ating the emotion of the 4th century, we 
now get passionate action, and limbs twisted in pain (Laocoon). 
And in tranquil poses we get graceful, pleasing or sensual 
attitudes, and Aphrodites, Nymphs and Satyrs. In the 
course of their efforts to produce them the artists do not 
always avoid preciosity and mannerism or grace that is both 
studied and arch. At Myrina, Eros curves his arm over his 
head with the smile of a ballet dancer;*° the Naples Dionysus? 


1 (XII. 2 CLXXVI, p. 569. 

> LXXXVI, vol. i, p. 328. 

4 RA, 1908, i, p. 386; CLXII, p. 207; CLXIII, p. 49. 

5 CLXII, p. 270; RA, 1908, i, p. 386. 

6 OXI, Pl. xxii, 511. 7 LXXXVI, vol. i, pp. 158, 371. 
* OXI, PL xxi. ® LXII, vol. ii, p. 453. 


POSE 203 


delicately lifts his finger, inclines his head, and bestows his 
favours on the public. 

But how can we enumerate the variety of Hellenistic 
art ? The complexity of life itself is now the theme and 
no longer certain limited and codified types of it, as in the 
5th century, and even in the 4th century. Even the chiasmos 
of the limbs is sometimes abandoned whose regular observ- 
ance had become almost a convention, since it is impossible 
to bend nature invariably to this rigid law; it is often 
abandoned in figures in action; the crouching man of Cythera 
(Athens Museum)? advanced his left arm and his left leg, 
and the whole of the right side of his body is drawn back; 
in a series of Pergamene works action is entirely confined to 
one side of the body (ex voto of Attalus, the Venice Gaul, 
the Aix Persian, etc.).° 

Looking back at the distance travelled from the formless 
Dipylon idols and the crude mannikins of the geometric 
vases, and entirely from the point of view of the problems 
of pose, one realizes how great have been the acquisitions, 
made with rigorous logic, and how vastly superior the Greek 
artist is to his fellow-craftsmen of other lands incapable of 
making progress without his assistance. Following the same 
road up to the end of the 6th century, he then breaks suddenly 
with them and he sees before him a marvellous future. He 
begins by ridding himself of frontality: thenceforth the 
variety of subjects, attitudes and rhythms is infinite, and 
there is the chance of solving the problem of foreshortening 
in drawing, and of introducing action into statuary instead 
of limiting it to repose or to a few unalterable schemas that 
are incorrect withal. He has finished with conventions and 
gives himself up to the close study of reality. In Egyptian 
art, although it covers a longer total period, by thousands 
of years, than Greek art, frontality remains to the end and 
imposes on statuary analogous schemas to those of the 
6th century in Greece—enthroned Pharaohs and gods, and 
immobile and lifeless erect figures; foreshortening is unknown, 
and the same conventions replace it as did duty in Greece— 
the union of limbs seen full-face with those seen in profile. 
The Greek artist had a feeling for the real, and a desire to 


1 VI, vol. iii, p.369. 2 REG, 1901, p. 125; AA, 1921, 36, p. 333. 
3 LXII, vol. ii, p. 500. 


204. ART IN GREECE 


get ever closer to truth, a love of the life animating that 
human body which he observed in all its varied attitudes; 
he had esthetic feeling, too, an understanding of the beauty 
of form whether in action or repose. All these qualities 
enabled him to break the fetters of those poses which for 
ever bound the art of other antique peoples, and, through 
the intermediation of Rome, to facilitate the task of the 
modern artist. 


CHAPTER III 
ANATOMY? 


ANATOMY was being studied at the same time as pose; the 
artist wished to acquire a knowledge of the internal structures 
as well as of the outer form. The human body which he 
had occasion to observe in many different poses interested 
him also on account of its architecture, the play of the limbs, 
the articulations and muscles both in repose and in action. 
_ He began by independently analyzing its multiple details 
such as the pectoral muscles, abdomen, hair, eyes, mouth, 
kneecap, etc.—by studying its grammar before he con- 
sidered it as a whole, that is to say before he knew how 
to establish the correct relation between its different parts 
_or the reciprocal repercussions for a given subject and a 
given attitude. 

This, too, was an original conquest. The art of such 
other antique peoples as might have inspired Greece had 
no more scrutinized anatomical truth than it had under- 
stood the variety and verity of human attitudes. For them 
the details of the body are always conventionally or approxi- 
mately rendered. Egypt took no heed of such precision; 
Chaldza had made but a few rare attempts to achieve it— 
praiseworthy, none the less, at such a remote epoch, and it 
has been remarked that in some of its works of art “ the 
broad modelling of the shoulders, and the chest which breathes 
beneath the drapery, would not come amiss to a Greek 
Jupiter of the ancient style! (Heuzey). The Assyrian 
human form seems to be firmly built, with tense muscles, 
until you look more closely, when it is seen that this is 
schematic exaggeration done with the idea of giving an 
impression of strength rather than a close study of the living 
model. In Cyprus and in Etruria the plump balloon-like 
bodies have no internal armature. 

The Pre-Hellenes who dwelt on Greek soil are an exception 

1 CLXXVI-VII; VI, vol. iii. 
205 


206 ART IN GREECE 


to this general mediocrity. At Knossos the torso in relief 
of a prince, the arm in stucco holding a rhyton, and the ivory 
acrobat, possess a musculature both strong and correct, in 
which the artist goes so far as to indicate the veins in the 
arm and the finger-nails. The vigorous boxers on the Haghia 
Triada vase were already muscled like Greek athletes. Was 
it from these old Aigeans that the Greeks got alike their 
passion for gymnastic exercises and their knowledge of 
muscles, preserved by the natives who were subjugated by 
the newly arrived Dorians? Yet the Aigeans had been 
unable to develop this germ. Allying to their anthropo- 
morphism, as they did, those other religious conceptions 
of dendrolatry, phytolatry and zoolatry, they did not make 
large statues, and their realism concerned itself less with 
man than with plant and animal life. The Dorian con- 
querors drew the attention of the artist to human anatomy 
because their anthropomorphism eliminated everything else; 
then, too, they were driven by the very conditions of their 
life, for ever on their guard, to give great importance to 
physical education in private and public life; they developed 
the athletic games after which the victors, who had triumphed 
by the strength of their muscles, consecrated their effigies. 

The Greeks studied anatomy as artists, not as students 
of science; the sight of beautiful limbs and their harmonious 
play awakened esthetic emotion in them; one might almost 
hear them say, as later the Renaissance artist: “‘ You will 
derive pleasure from drawing the vertebre because they are 
magnificent; then you will draw the bone which is placed 
between the two branches: it is very beautiful.” 

But for the Greeks it was a living not a morbid 
anatomy. For long they never studied the skeleton or the 
écorché. They observed the living model, not immobilized 
in a studio but in the free rough-and-tumble of gymnasia 
and stadium, and out of doors under the eye of them all 
in the multifarious movements inseparable from daily life. 
They saw it in the open air, tanned by the sun, silhouetted 
against the sky, the relief of its surface emphasized by 
the changing light. Active life in its thousands of varied 
aspects was for long the sole inspiration of the artist. Such 
aid as is given by the studio with"its poses taken to order, 
fatiguing and frigidly immobilizing the body, or of science 


a . eee ee 


ANATOMY 207 


with its scalpel excavating among muscles and flaccid flesh, 
was not yet his. Even in repose the figures do not appear 
to be posing but to be reality rendered in stone. It is only 
with Praxiteles that we begin to get the impression of a 
model who has posed for the artist in the calm of the studio; 
this artist was the first to supply examples of those poses 
which are not instinctive but which have been dictated; 
he was to be the forerunner of that academic art which 
developed among the Hellenists. It was by viewing the 
living body that the artist moulded himself, and by viewing 
the masterpieces of great artists, and studying their writings 
on the “‘canons”’ of art (for example, those of Polyclitus), 
and on proportions. From the 4th century the practice 
of taking life casts, begun by Lysistratus, the brother of 
Lysippus, and of taking casts from statues, also facilitated 
his task by multiplying correct models. 

Sculptors were the principal authors of progress in ana- 
tomy, though painters may have been responsible for the 
greatest advance in poses. Certainly drawing does not give 
the artist the same facilities in this domain. The figures 
on the black-figure vases, posed in profile and projected on 
a plane surface by means of the cast shadow method, were 
for long nothing but silhouettes with sufficiently correct 
contours, satisfying the eye, but whose interior details were 
negligently rendered or incorrect, imposed by the conventions 
inherent in drawing. Neither was the use of a burin to 
incise the outlines of muscles on this opaque image very 
favourable. It was modelling in the round that made and 
kept the lead here, up to the time when the substitution of 
the red-figure vase with its light ground for the figure itself, 
the use of a brush instead of a burin, the interior delineation 
by means of varying densities of glaze—a method which 
did not appear in the earlier red-figure vases and which seems 
to have come in with Chachrylion—and the knowledge of 
how to foreshorten which enabled the body to be drawn in 
the most varied muscular poses, all combined to enable the 
ceramist to follow closely the progress accomplished in 
statuary. 

It was a laborious and patient study' because the artist 
started from almost complete ignorance. The oldest examples 

: 1 VI, vol. iii, p. 181. 


208 ART IN GREECE 


: 

of Hellenic sculpture, the ivory idols of the Attic Dipylon, 
render only the external contours of the human body and 
are in no way superior to the eneolithic idols of the Cyclades, 
though these were over two thousand years earlier. In 
fact, up to the close of the 6th century, the silhouette might 
be correct, in statuary and in vase-drawing, whilst the interior 
details were often quite wrong; many of these bodies appear 
to be innocent of internal structures, being round and as 
though blown up like a balloon, or else present a smooth 
surface. Progress was rapid or slow according to the indi- 
vidual talent of the artist and his ethnic origin—whether 
he was Ionian or Dorian, the Dorians from the earliest times 
being more anxious than the Ionians to seek anatomical 
truth. If we compare with these early naive works the ephebic 
statues of Polyclitus, whose anatomy, although synthetized, 
is perfect, or those of the Hellenistic period with their subtlety, 
marking the extreme point of development, we see how great 
have been the acquisitions during this period of a few centuries. 

The anatomical problems the artist had to solve are many 
and various. 

The primitive readily omitted details which seem to us 
essential—such as mouth, nose, arms, legs, ete.—but which 
to him seemed useless if the human schema was sufficiently 
recognizable without them. Now, however, every detail is 
to be observed, and then translated in the most precise 
fashion because it is there in reality. The first effort, then, 
consisted in remarking the presence of bones beneath the 
skin, of muscles, tendons, veins and the multiple features 
of the living body, often scarcely perceptible. Then these 
have to be repeated in the body of stone, first those which 
are most easily seen, and the more important, then the 
smaller ones, because everything did not attract the attention 
of the artist at one and the same time, and their presence 
or absence sometimes serves as a chronological criterion; 
for instance, the serratus magnus muscle on the side is not 
indicated before the Atginetan art of the first quarter of the 
5th century, and if it is sometimes missing later it is due 
to the youth of the subject (example: the basalt ephebus 
of the Palatine). 

In the earliest statues of the 6th century! the vertical 

1 See for such details, VI, vol. iii, p. 158; LXVIII, p. 65. 


PLATE VIII 


Fig. 37. PTOION AND NAUCRATIS 
TORSOS 


6th Century 


Fig. 38. RHODES KOUROS 
6th Century 


Fig. 39. PTOION TORSO 
6th Century 


Fig. 65. KOUROI AT NAUCRATIS AND 
RHODES 


6th Century 
(See p. 309) 


{ face p. 208 


ANATOMY 209 


and uninflected line of the back is separated from the vertical 
line of the legs by the swelling of the buttocks. In the 
Naucratis or Rhodes Kouroi' the reverse of the statuette— 
its hair, back, and thighs—form an almost plane surface. 
Soon the vertebral column begins to take a curve; at first 


_ hardly perceptible, the curvature gradually increases and the 


back loses its primitive plank-like aspect. To the swelling 
of the buttocks, at first scarcely projecting and gradually 
becoming more rounded, is opposed the growing curvature 
of the shoulder-blades. On the other side of the figure the 
chest and the abdomen begin by being quite straight; the 
slight swell of the pectorals and lower abdomen is hardly 
distinguishable. The earliest statues, seen in profile, thus 
present two perceptibly vertical and parallel lines, and one 
can very nearly square them between two upright planks, one 
placed in front and the other behind? (Fig. 37, Plate VIII). 
With time this parallelism disappears and the dorsal curve 
becomes opposed to the pectoral and abdominal curve. 
Although the thickness of the chest does not at first equal 
that of the pelvis with the protruding buttocks of the archaic 
ideal, yet since the pectorals develop and the back incurves 
more and more, balance is established between the upper 
and lower portions of the trunk. 

Seen from the front the 6th-century Kouroi are slender 
in build, with the sides curving in beneath the armpits, strong 
shoulders, and sloping hips without any projections (Fig. 38, 
Plate VIII). The torso may be bounded on either side by 
two regular and opposed curves (Fig. 39, Plate VIII). Soon 
the artist comes to perceive the projection of the iliac bone 
and indicates it. Still rare in the 6th century, this detail 
becomes constant in the 5th, and is exaggerated in Argive 
athletic statuary. The inguinal folds, indicated by two lines 
of varying length which depart obliquely from the pubis, 
do not reach the hip-joint, and lose themselves in the swelling 
of the lower abdomen and the thigh before they come to 
be carried further. Rectilinear at first, they end by describing 
a slight curve which becomes more and more accentuated 
and transforms itself eventually into a broken angular line: 
this is the well-marked schema of the 5th-century statues. 
The abdomen, formerly ending in an angle of which the 


1 LXVIII, pp. 232, 243. 7 2 CLXXVII. 
14 


210 ART IN GREECE 


pubis was the apex, now, in the ephebi of the 5th century, 
describes in this region an elliptical curve. In nature the 
linea alba passing through the umbilicus descends as far as 
the pudenda and divides into two portions the rectus 
abdominis. The three tendinous markings of the rectus 
muscle divide it into four aponeuroses, the lower intersection 
coming exactly where the umbilicus is situated, and the 
uppermost coming below the pectoral muscles. The external 
borders of the right and left rectus determine the lines 
separating this from the external oblique muscle. The 
sculptor of the 6th century experienced considerable diffi- 
culty in understanding how these muscles were disposed. 
At first he ignored them completely, and the abdomen is 
merely a smooth surface with a hole in it where the navel 
comes midway between the two pectorals and the inguinal 
folds. He begins by indicating the lower border of the 
thoracic cage beneath the pectorals by an incised angle, and 
when he came to observe this he also added the linea alba, 
tracing it as far down as the umbilicus. In the first quarter 
of the 5th century this line is sometimes carried down as 
far as the pubis, a detail rare in reality, which is seen in 
AXginetan work, in the Treasury of the Athenians, and in 
vases of the severe style; on certain 5th-century vases it 
may even be shown by two parallel lines, a more precise 
convention for rendering this furrow. 

The artist next takes note of the divisions of the abdomen 
below the thoracic angle. But his observation is faulty to 
start with (Fig. 40); he does not clearly recognize the 
aponeuroses separated by the three intersecting tendinous 
markings; he gets their number wrong; he exaggerates it, 
and divides the abdomen by five parallel lines (Orchomenos 
Kouros), by four (Sunium Kouros, Moscophoros), and then 
by three. And how odd it makes the abdomen look, as if 
scored across by lines of music! The thoracic cage, begin- 
ning with an abrupt angle, curves in at the apex, widens, 
and is confounded with the upper portion of the rectus. 
The sides of this curve are at first arrested fairly high up, 
then descend as far as the pubis, as they do in reality. In 
the latest Kouroi of the 6th century the external borders 
of the rectus are elongated to a point in the direction of the 
pubis, and the rectus is only divided by two lines determining 


ae 


ANATOMY 211 


three divisions. This is the most developed stage and this 
tripartite division remains in the art of the 5th century." 
These minute analyses, of which we give only a few 


examples, are necessary if we are to understand the sum 


total of the work done by the 6th-century artists. We shall 
appreciate better by what laborious tentative experimenta- 
tion they arrived at the stage of observing and rendering 
the multiple details of human structure. The inevitable 
initial errors are corrected one by one, and convention yields 
place to truth. 

They had likewise to situate these details in their proper 
place in the body as a whole, neither too high up nor too 


8 6B 


Fic. 40. 6TH-cENTURY Kouror. (Cf. LXVIII, p. 77, Pl. iv.) ; 


low down. The artist went wrong on this point for a long 
time: in particular the pectorals and the ears are often too 
high, the former in line with the armpits. 

Next, these details have to be given their correct dimen- 
sions proportionately to the other parts of the body. The 
eye is enormous, and the neck out of all proportion both in 
archaic drawing and sculpture.” 

Finally the details must be rendered in their correct 


_ form and not according to some convention. But at first 


the artist reduced them to geometrical schemas—a triangle 
for the torso, the head, the eye, the foot, and the nose; a 
rectangle, a pillar or a cloche for the body; an acute angle 
for the pectorals and a lozenge for the knee-cap.2 He 


1 LXVIII, p. 76. __ # VI, vol. ii, pp. 154, 155, 267. 
3 Ibid., p. 142. 


212 ART IN GREECE 


schematizes them. Look at the ear:' it lends itself to curious 
stylizations resembling a snail’s shell, or the volute of an 
Tonic capital (Sunium Kouros). Or look at the hair:? it 
formed bead, godroons, whorls, corkscrews and volutes. 
How strange are the decorative renderings of the hair of the 
Rampin head,* of the Sunium Kouros and the Acropolis 
Korai (6th century) !* Gradually the sinuous contours of 
real life, the appearance of reality, has to be substituted for 
these schemas and for this ornamental conception. 

At the same time the linear markings, which look as 
though the anatomical details had been drawn on the marble, 
have to be replaced by genuine modelling, which gradually 
becomes deeper instead of quite superficial. The thoracic 
arch and the abdominal divisions are no longer incised but 
are rendered with their hollows and their relief; the exoph- 
thalmic eye of the 6th century, which looks as though starting 
out of the head, retires in the 5th century further under the 
brows; the lids, bits of paper stuck on the eyeball, are detached 
from it and achieve a certain substance. 

The 6th-century artist pursues this study especially in 
his male Kouroi in complete repose, whose musculature is 
inert and never changes. But when the human figure is 
in action or makes some violent gesture, its musculature is 
thereby modified, it contracts, and the observed appearance 
no longer holds good. “Is it not by modelling your works 
on living beings” said Socrates, “that you make your 
statues appear animate ?—Exactly. And, as our different 
attitudes cause the play of certain muscles of our body, 
upwards or downwards, so that some are contracted and 
some stretched, some wrung and some relaxed, is it not by 
expressing these efforts that you give greater truth and 
verisimilitude to your works ?—Precisely.”® This alteration 
in the musculature and limbs caused by movement sets the 
archaic artist a difficult problem which for long he could not 
solve. In the frontal statue the trunk seen from the front 
is immobile; the gestures of arms and legs in no way affect 
it. The muscles remain inert in a body that is in action. 

* VI, vol. iii, p. 154; LXVIII, pp. 91, 96, Pl. vi. 

* VI, vol. iii, p. 157; LXVIII, p. 100. 

° LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 641. 4 LXXIX, p. 197. 


5 VI, vol. iii, p. 208. 
* Xenophon’s Recollections of Socrates. 


ANATOMY 2138 


Look at the Acropolis Triton;' the muscles of arms and 
trunk ought to stand out as a result of the effort of the struggle, 
but they merely show rounded, unbroken and _ horizontal 
surfaces without any real modelling. The arm of a com- 
batant (Acropolis torso, prior to 480)? rests tranquilly on 
the shoulder of his adversary instead of itself contracting 
and leaving an impress on the other’s flesh, and the frontal 
torso in no way feels the repercussion. The Moscophoros 
carries a calf: he raises his arms to the height of his chest 
to hold the animal’s feet, but the weight of the burden is 
not reflected in his shoulders, and the muscles of the trunk 
are rendered precisely as though the arms hung by his sides. 
The movement remains localized in the limb that makes it, 
no matter how violent the action, and it is not propagated 
throughout the body as it should be. 

And how maladroit they are when they come to couple 
the different portions of the body affected by movement, 
making the whole move as one piece, like the carapace of a 
crustacean, with the joints as rigid as mechanical hinges, and 
with the heads of such figures as are looking backwards 
slewed round, practically back to front, like a windvane on a 
steeple, and with the frontal torso fitted on to the pelvis 
in profile much as a rigid cuirass might be (the Enceladus of 
the Hekatompedon pediment, Athens)! Displacements are 
neither accurately observed nor correctly rendered. In the 
Corcyra Gigantomachy (6th century), despite the torsion of 
the trunk, the axis of the umbilicus is not sufficiently displaced 
towards the right.®* 

Frontality is broken towards 500, and, with its abandon- 
ment, statues will acquire freedom and ease of movement. 
The solution of the problem, however, is still too fresh for 
there to be nothing left of the old naiveté; the torso, when it 
is rendered in action, still bears traces of its early ankylosis 
for a long time to come, and it betrays the difficulty 
experienced by the sculptor in establishing correct junction 
with the rest of the body. In the Tyrannicides group 
(477-476) the shoulders and trunk still participate in- 
adequately in the violent action of the arms and legs. The 
faulty junction is perceptible in the fallen figures of the 


1 LXXVIII, p. 37. 2 Ibid., p. 405. 
8 RA, 1911, ii, p. 1. 4 LXXVIII, p. 438. 


214 ART IN GREECE 


ZEgina and Olympia pediments, in the Heracles with the 
Bull of a metope at Olympia, in Myron’s Diskobolos, in the 
Boy plucking a Thorn from his Foot, in which the navel is 
placed quite incorrectly. Even in the Doryphoros of Poly- 
clitus the flexion of the trunk, though slight, has not all the 
ease and freedom to be desired (about 445). Only in the 
Parthenon is the natural junction of torso and pelvis, and the 
true concordance between 
the play of the limbs and 
the joints' achieved by 
Phidias (Fig. 41). Indeed, 
difficulties of this kind re- 
appear whenever art goes 
back to the inexperience of 
its beginnings; for instance, 
we can see the same mal- 
junction of torso and legs in 
the frontal seated figures of 
certain Flavian reliefs. 

If musculature has to be 
adapted to the movement 
made, it has also to be adap- 
ted to the subject chosen. 
The body of the adult man 


adolescent. The 6th-century 
7 ~ artist makes no difference in 
Fic. 41. Recuinine Ficures or his stone people, bringing 
Pei Epa AND PARTHENON them all within a mean age, 
such variants as there are 
resulting from the esthetic tendencies proper to this or 
that school or studio. Furthermore, types are still in that 
indeterminate stage usual in the earliest phases of art; the 
artist does not know how to transcribe the specific characters 
of man, of woman, or of the various human ages, and the 
dominance of the athletic ideal imposes on all, young and old, 
an analogous appearance. From the beginning of the 5th 
century, however, he tries to render the differences in muscula- 
ture according to age, social station, and individual pecu- 
liarities. About 480 the Acropolis ephebus No. 6927 has the 
1 CLXXVI, p. 69; CLXIV, p. 66. 2 LXXVIII, p. 458. 


is not the same as that of the ~ 


| ie 


ANATOMY 215 


body of a youth of sixteen years or thereabouts, with the 
appropriate flowing lines and slimness of build, whereas his 
contemporaneous comrade, ephebus No. 698,' has already 
the sturdy breadth of shoulder of a small athlete. In the 
Panathenaic frieze, Poseidon, of ripe age, has stouter muscles 
than Apollo. The task of the 5th-century artist was to give 
to each individual his appropriate anatomy, and to understand 
these subtle differences. As we know, however, it was not 
till the 4th century and later that art became thoroughly 
realistic, rendering with scrupulous fidelity the anatomical 
forms of the child, the woman and the old man; it is still 
limited in the 5th by its idealism and obsessed by the body of 
the ephebus. 

This patient study of anatomical detail was pursued 
throughout the 6th century. From the first quarter of the 
5th it has very nearly achieved its end. The artist, such as he 
of Aigina, has a good knowledge of the human body and there 
are only a few small details to be perfected. For example, he 
modifies the shape of the eye towards the middle of the 5th 
century, knowing that the two lids do not join in an abrupt 
angle at the outer extremity, but that the upper lid slightly 
overrides the lower. He establishes a better relation between 
different parts in action. His predecessors were absorbed in 
the grammar of the body in repose; he seeks synthesis and 
the co-ordination of details in attitudes that have become 
infinitely varied since the abandonment of frontality. 
Towards 450 the last traces of inexperience have gone; the 
artist has now but to put his knowledge into practice, to 
familiarize himself with it till it becomes instinctive, and also 
to bring ease and subtlety into it. 

Fifth-century musculature is exact, often dry, even to 
excess. Happy in his possession of its secrets, the sculptor 
seeks to put his knowledge to the proof and occasionally 
he exaggerates in his expression of it—as witness the torso 
of the Heracles with the Hind in the Treasury of the 
Athenians (Delphi, between 490 and 485);7 it looks almost 
like an écorché, or a rigid shell taken as a cast from 
the body (Fig. 42). This character is only attenuated by 
degrees in the second half of the 5th century, especially 
in the Attic art of Phidias, but the sharpness of delineation 


1 LXXVIII, p. 452. 2 Ibid., p. 414. 


216 ART IN GREECE 


and the precision remain characteristic features to which 
the statues of Polyclitus bear witness. 

This musculature is reduced to its broad divisions; it is 
treated in large planes, almost geometrically. It does not 
pretend to render every detail; following the ideal of the day, 
it synthetized and generalized. 
But the transitions from one 
plane to another are still some- 
what hard in quality; the Dory- 
phoros and the other ephebi of 
Polyclitus are instances of this. 

Nevertheless, convention is 
not entirely eliminated in the 
5th century. Short and semi- 
short hair for men, and occa- 
sionally for women, has suc- 
ceeded the long hair, falling in 

a sheet down the back, with a 
Hic. 42. METOPE or THE TREA- few symmetrical curls detached 
SURY OF THE ATHENIANS . . 
DELPHI. > from it and disposed over the 
shoulders on either side. The 
hair is now sober and simple, without the embellishments and 
minutiz of the 6th century, and no longer incised but modelled. 
All the same, it has not yet the picturesque quality nor the 
variety of real life; its curls are too schematic—whorls in 
several rows framing the countenance, or spirals resembling 
a carpenter’s woodshavings, volutes, and short locks each one 
identical with its neighbour; they cover the head far too 
regularly; their mass does not adapt itself to the cranium 
naturally and sometimes looks like an artificial cap (the 
Tyrannicides); the curls are too regular, too well dressed and 
combed. The Ancients praised Pythagoras of Rhegium for 
having rendered hair more realistically than his predecessors ;} 
Phidias bestows more elasticity that Polyclitus on his short 
and tumbled locks which are already modelled pictorially. 
Nevertheless, hair, throughout the 5th century, preserves, 
like musculature, a monumental and architectonic character. 

The artist of the 4th century, inheriting from his pre- 
decessor the precise knowledge of anatomical detail, has no 
more errors to rectify, but he can still conceive the esthetic 


1 CLXIV, p. 41. 


ANATOMY 217 


transcription of the human body in quite a different fashion, 
bringing to his version subtlety and variety. Hitherto the 
sculptor has concerned himself mainly with the athlete, and 
this ideal has even modified other types of figure. The 
4th-century artist concerns himself, rather, with the differences 
between the sexes, and between various ages and environ- 
ments; he seeks to render the delicacy, grace and sensuous 
quality of the bodies of women, adolescents and children, 
and the feminine ideal now softens even the masculine figure 
(Apollino, Sauroctonos). He wants to soften the frigidity of 
a mathematical and ornamental modelling; his transitions 
between the planes of the statuary body are more frequent 
and more skilfully effected. In order to achieve this he 
utilizes more freely than his predecessor the resources of 
painting, which, from the close of the 5th century, devotes its 
attention to modelling, to chiaroscuro, light and shade, and 
atmosphere. Henceforward sculptors will look at things 
pictorially. Formerly the human frame has been shown as 
it really is, with its general anatomy correctly transcribed; 
now, in the 4th century, it is represented as it appears to be 
in its accidental variations by means of attenuations of the 
brusque transitions from one plane to another, and by the 
play of light and shade on the salients and depressions of its 
modelling. Greater realism is desired, and the chance effect 
is welcomed. The hair is no longer a mass of symmetrical 
curls, each one of which is identical with the rest, but every 
lock of hair is now treated individually by the artist. It is 
irregular, untamed locks of all sizes tumbling over one another 
(Apoxyomenos of Lysippus),' and here and there one is allowed 
to escape and encroach on the forehead and neck. The mass 
of the hair is deeply sculped in order to retain shadow and set 
up contrast with the high lights of the salient portions. Hair 
as treated by Praxiteles (Olympian Hermes, Eubouleus’), 
Scopas (Tegea heads),* and Lysippus (Agias)' is picturesque 
and pictorial. 

The Hellenists developed these tendencies. They gave 
greater precision to the anatomical differences between the 
sexes and different ages, and to the differentiation of social, 
intellectual and moral status; they loved to transcribe the 


1 CLX, Fig. 6. 2 LXX, Pl. xvi; CLIX. 
3 XLIX, Figs. 3-4. 4 CLX, Fig. 2. 


218 ART IN GREECE 


plump bodies of babies or the withered flesh of old women and 
fishermen, and they observed a thousand gradations in the 
gamut running from one of these extremes to the other. 
They did not shrink from rendering physiological and patho- 
logical defects—especially was this the case with the modellers 
of terra cotta figurines. On this point, as on others, 5th- 
century art was idealistic; knowing the form and position of 
the different parts of the body, it gave to musculature a 
general and abstract character which was the same for all; 
the 4th century brought in greater diversity; but it belonged 
to the Hellenists to render the thousand and one differences 
with a precision that was often pitiless, and with all the 
complexity of life itself. 

Hitherto artists had studied the living body exclusively; 
now they sought information from the doctors who, from 
the time of the first Ptolemies, had, like Herophilus and 
Erasistratus, already practised dissection. Scientific anatomy 
henceforth was included in the education of an artist. And 
it modified the aspect of the work they accomplished. They 
often betray a too exact knowledge of anatomy. They loved - 
to exaggerate musculature that could be detailed at leisure. 
When we look at the body of the Marsyas bound to his tree 
of punishment,” we realize that the sculptor has not a 
scrap of sympathy for the suffering of his Silenus but that 
what particularly intrigued him was the skeletal frame so 
curiously indicated beneath the skin. It has often been 
made a reproach to the Borghese combatant® that he looks 
like an écorché—is more of an anatomical model than a 
work of art; one feels that the musculature of the athlete, 
hardened in the sun, has become a sort of cuirass of 
which each detail is chiselled, and that his energetic attitude 
has been calculated with the purpose of showing the play of 
~ his muscles; and this precision begins to get too learned, too 
deliberate, and somewhat boring in its excessive exactitude. 
The muscles swell into veritable mountains. In the 5th 
century Heracles was a man of strength, but not exaggeratedly 
so: in the Farnese statue* he has become the strong man of 
the circus, and this. excessive musculature is a Hellenistic 
trait of which there are a number of samples in the Pergamum 


1 (XI, p. 95. 2 LXII, vol. ii, p. 547. 
3 Ibid., p. 673. 4 Ibid., p. 427. 


ANATOMY 219 


frieze. The anatomy is tortured, bombastic and declama- 
tory; it is a schoolmen’s science, and it degenerates into an 
affair of studio formulas. Hellenistic work has no longer the 
sincerity and freshness of the 5th-century sculptures, of a 
time when the artist got his anatomical knowledge exclusively 
from the living model which he could observe going through 
its exercises under his very eyes. 


CHAPTER IV 
DRAPERY 


Tuer Greek artist also grappled with the problem of clothing, 
and by its solution he made himself master of a new means 
of expression. The Egyptian with his rigid drawers and his 
transparent tunic and the Chaldean made only timid efforts 
in this genre, and their knowledge was limited to conventional 
folds; the Assyrian buried his figures under robes over- 
burdened with embroidery, looking as.though they were of 
cardboard. The material, in the art of these lands, remains 
a garment which covers the body, either less or more; it had 
no sesthetic value for them. The Greek alone comprehended 
that beauty was to be achieved by means of the stuff of which 
a garment is made, of its folds and its adaptation to or its 
contrast with the body that is partially or wholly dissimulated 
by it. Enamoured of the real, he was to seek to render this 
stuff with increasing fidelity, adapting it to the personality 
and to the movements of the figure, and deepening its folds, 
and he was to do away with the conventional schemas which 
persisted up to the end in the art of these other lands. 
Drapery became for him, like pose and like anatomy, an 
indispensable element of statuary and drawing. 

Greek clothing certainly lent itself to this experimental 
study.!. It was no longer the sewn costume of the Aigean 
ladies,? the simple masculine drawers of the Aigeans and 
Egyptians, or the heavy woollen kawnakes of the Chaldeans. 
It was a piece of stuff, soft and ample, which had no well- 
defined form. Whether chiton, himation or chlamys, it 
was suspended from the shoulders and fell freely, and by its 
own weight it determined its folds which were many or few, 
heavy or fine, according to whether the garment was the 
woollen Dorian peplos or the linen Ionian chiton. The move- 
ments of the body which modified their folds, or the presence 
or absence of a girdle, imported into them infinite variety. 


1 CCI, CCIV. 2 CCII. 
220 


DRAPERY 221 


According to the place and the weather the Greek dress 
presented differences in the manner of its adjustment, but it 
always preserved this character of freedom, so eminently 
esthetic, which we find again to-day among certain peoples 
of Asia and Africa for whom dress material is a drapery, as 
it was for the Greeks, and not, as with our modern selves, a 
fitted garment. 

The Greek artist got from drapery the possibility of new 
subjects. How many of his works, statues and drawings, 
show a figure putting on a garment, disrobing, or occupied 
in some way over the toilet! The Korai of the 6th century 
gather up in the left hand their trailing tunics; Hera draws 
back her veil to show herself to her mystic spouse, Zeus: 
(metope of the Herzeum at Selinus, prior to 450;' Panathenaic 
frieze); the Herculaneum dancers (about 460)? repeat the 
old archaic gesture, or fasten the peplos on their shoulder, 
as the Artemis of Gabii does, later (4th century).° In the 
Parthenon an ephebus is putting on his tunic as it might be 
a shirt, another is having his girdle fastened by a little serving 
lad, and the Aphrodite of Cnidus allows her last veil to slip 
from off her. 

The artist studied musculature chiefly in the masculine 
body; drapery he studies principally in his female figures. 
For if man actually stripped in the palestra and for the 
gymnastic competitions, woman never appeared unveiled in 
ordinary daily life. These social differences determined two 
artistic series which in archaic art are entirely distinct. In 
the 6th century the nude Kouros contrasts with the draped 
Kore; there are few draped men and few nude women, and 
this dualism persists to the 5th century. It was in tran- 
scribing in art the feminine form in which they delighted that 
the Ionians became pioneers in the close study of the problems 
of drapery, whilst the Peloponnesian Greeks who preferred 
masculine strength concentrated on the study of the human 
muscles. 

The following are the problems that the artist has to solve 
in regard to drapery:* he must observe and render truth- 
fully the material itself, whether quiescent or in movement, 
together with its plane surfaces and its folds, and the modifica- 


1 LXII, vol. i, p. 413. 2 Ibid., p. 424. 3 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 283. 
4 See, for these details, VI, vol. iii, p. 125 ff. 


222 ART IN GREECE 


tions it undergoes as a result of body movements and wind; 
he must establish a correct correlation between this drapery 
and the figure it covers; he must also get an understanding of 
its expressive beauty and value and of its spiritual ce moral _ 
significance. 

At the outset folds were often neglected, and the stuff 
enveloped the body like a sheath, without a single furrow to 
vary its uniformity (statue of Nicandra, at Delos, statues at 
Eleutherna, at Tegea,' etc., 6th century). But in the course 
of the 6th century, in statuary, and in painting in which 
Cimon of Cleonz is reputed to be the first to have studied 
folds (in veste rugas et sinus invenit), the artist’s attention is 
arrested by the folds of the garment. These are still highly 
conventional—as were anatomical details: they may be 
undulating furrows, grooves, lines in relief, flutings and 
swallow’s tails which give the stuff just as ornamental, decora- 
tive and unreal a character as that given to hair or anatomical 
features. In the Acropolis Museum in Athens many statues 
of Korai,? the relief showing a figure mounting into a chariot, 
dating from the early years of the 5th century,’ and the Kore 
of Euthydicus, prior to 480,* all bear witness that the period 
of such conventions is over, and that truth was now being 
sought. This task was pursued and carried to its conclusion 
in the first half of the 5th century. 

A fold consists of a raised portion and a hollow. The 
artist at first failed to recognize these two elements and he 
painted or incised a simple line on the surface of the stone 
(Chrysapha relief, Samos Hera, Samian statues of the Acro- 
polis, seated statue of Chares, 6th century).° As time went 
on the fold acquired some body and substance and was 
modelled; but, throughout the 6th century, it retained this 
superficial character on the surface of the marble, which we 
already remarked in the delineation of muscles (Acropolis 
Korai). From the close of the 6th and the beginning of the 
5th centuries, the fold bit deeper into the material; the flat 
folds, looking as though they had been crushed in the process 
of being ironed, and which were usual with the Korai, now 
disappear; they become deep and substantial-in the figures 

1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, pp. 148, 430. 2 LXXVIII, p. 358, ete. 


3 Ibid., p. 408. 4 Ibid., p. 353. 
. LXXXIV, vol. viii, pp. 146, 278, 295-7, 489. 


PLATE IX 


HESTIA GIUSTINIAN 


(Torlonia Museum, Rome) 


About 460 


: { face p. 222 


DRAPERY 223 


wearing the Dorian peplos in the first half of the 5th century, 
and they hold shadow in their cavities, allowing the light to 
play on the salient portions. 

The artist, now that he has a knowledge of the variety 
possible in folds, chooses those which please him most, and 
which give the best esthetic effect, and a study of vase- 
painting from the beginning of the 5th century, as a study of 
plastic art at the same period, will yield evidence of this 
attentive and refined experimentation. We shall find drapery 
with wide, sober folds largely spaced, as, for instance, in the 
vase-painting of Hieron, and in statuary in the series of female 
figures draped in the Dorian peplos;' we shall find drapery 
with numerous very fine folds, either straight or undulating, 
often rendered with a certain mannerism, as, for example, 

by Brygus. Finally, we shall find in every period the variants 

corresponding with the taste and temperament of individuals, 
some of whom prefer simplicity and mass effects, whilst others 
prefer elegance, suppleness and the refinements of detail; 
variants which also correspond with what is fitting in the 
subject, because drapery is to become a means of expressing 
the spiritual and moral status of the figure it covers. Com- 
pare, for instance, the little sinuous folds which ripple like 
water over the bodies of the Victories accompanying the 
goddess on the balustrade of the temple of Athena Nike,” with 
the wide, straight folds of the Korai of the Erechtheum or of 
Athena Parthenos. 

The artist finds plenty of resources in the direction given 
to these folds; he was already interested in it in the 6th 
century; these tentative experiments have achieved their 
“object by the 5th century, and are now more consciously 
undertaken. Certain works betray delight in the vertical 
and the parallel. In the 6th century the Samos Hera (Fig. 
43),° the Samian statues of the Acropolis* and the feminine 
bronze of Lusoi’ have the parallel folds of their chiton directed 
vertically downwards. In the 5th century, the Auriga of 
Delphi,® the Hestia Giustiniani (Pl. IX), and the series of 
women draped in the Dorian peplos (Herculaneum Dancers, 
Aphrodite of Dodona, etc.),” and a large number of red- 


1 LXXIII, p. 153. 2 LXII, vol. ii, p. 104. 


3 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 146. 4 Ibid., pp. 295-297. 
5 Ibid., p. 453. 6 Fouilles de Delphes. 7 BCH, xv, Pl. 9 


224. ART IN GREECE 


figure vase-paintings, are examples of it. From this predilection 
there results an impression of tranquillity and strength. One 
thinks, as one sees them, of the fluting on Dorie columns that 
support the architrave without flinching. These statues have 
an architectural stability. It is the type 
beloved of the 5th century, enamoured of 
calm and serenity, and conceiving statuary 
as a living architecture. 

Elsewhere oblique and transversal folds 
cross, overlap and cut one another; this 
results in quite different effects of grace 
and suppleness, besides greater variety. 
These are the folds, in the 5th century, 
seen in the “ Parcs ’’ of the Parthenon, in — 
the Aphrodite known as the “ Fréjus,”* 
of the Nike of Peonius (after 425), and 
of many other figures. The 4th century 
shows a preference for this conception, 
which is more realistic and more human; 
it is the conception of the Praxitelian 
drapery, of the Mausoleum statues,* and 
of the graceful Tanagra figurines.® 

The artist is interested not merely in 
the form and direction of the folds but in 
the stuff itself, which, by its quality and 
Fic. 43. Tur the contrast of its smooth surfaces with 

ee eee those that are variously creased, provides 
“unrury, him with several new effects. The sculptors 
of the 6th-century Korai already contrasted 

the vertical folds of the chiton with the oblique folds of the 
himation, and the large folds of the latter with the fine folds 
of the cotton chiton. From the end of the 6th century, and 
in the 5th, the painters of red-figure vases testify to the 
amount of experimentation of this sort that was going on; 
they contrasted the fine undulations of the kolpos with the 
straight folds of the skirt, and the naked simplicity of the 
heavy mantle with the numerous creasings of the light tunic. 
In the feminine statues draped in the Dorian peplos the 
sculptor alternates the smooth surfaces of the apoptygma, 
the semicircle of the kolpos, with the vertical lines of the 

1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 119. 2 Ibid., p. 321. 3 CVII. 


DRAPERY 225 


skirt; in the Tralles Caryatid (about 450), the heavy mantle, 
barely grooved by a few oblique strokes, is associated with 
the straight lines of the chiton. In the Fréjus Aphrodite 
the chiton, with a number of small oblique folds, clings to 
the body in front, and at the side it falls in substantial severe 
vertical folds. From this time forward there is an infinite 
variety in the combinations. 

It is to be understood, too, that drapery is an entity in 
itself, having substance and necessary direction. The 6th 
century already provides a few timid attempts in Ionian 
and Attic-Ionian sculpture. In the Korai of the Delphic 
pediment (second half of the 6th century),? as in the Kore 
of Antenor’ (about 510), the thin edges of the stuff are hol- 
lowed out from underneath and not merely worked from 
above; they take on a look of airiness and of movement. 
In Kore No. 594 of the Acropolis,* the ampler folds of the 
himation are no longer flattened on to themselves, but already 
stand out, ready to balance themselves naturally. This 
innovation is accentuated in the first quarter of the 5th 
century. The himation of Kore No. 688,” a little earlier 
than 480, has the substance of a woollen stuff, which stands 
away from the neck. Henceforth progress is rapid. Doubt- 
less a certain awkwardness sometimes still persists, for 
example in the Olympian statues (about 460), in which the 
drapery, which looks as if it were made of cardboard, is glued 
too closely tothe body. But the women draped in the Dorian 
peplos, distributed throughout the 5th century, bear witness 
that the artist, once he has grasped the necessity of detaching 
the stuff from the body, quickly finds the correct solution of 
the problem. From this point of view one may compare 
the old Korai of the 6th century with the Hestia Giustiniani 
(about 460), and with the Herculaneum Dancers, or with the 
more highly evolved Korai of the Erechtheum (about 415): 
on one hand the stuff is conventionally rendered, on the other 
it lives, has the proper substance, and is really modelled. 

And then came the realization that the stuff has weight. 
From clinging to the loins of the Ionian Korai, being in- 
sinuated between their legs, with its folds departing in 


1 MP, 1908, PI. ii-iii. 2 BCH, 1901, p. 457. 
2 LXXIX, p. 338. 4 LXXVIII, p. 222. 
5 Ibid., pp. 858, 410, 413. 


15 


226 ART IN GREECE 


impossible directions, it gradually comes to fall perpendicu- 
larly and to obey the laws of gravitation when there is nothing 
to interfere with their action. We shall see later that even 
in 450 or thereabouts the last mistakes of this kind had not 
yet entirely disappeared (relief of the Athena of the pillar, 
Acropolis Museum).* 

To unite the drapery harmoniously with the body without 
sacrificing one to the other was a problem that the 6th-century 
artist failed to grasp, but that the artist of the first half of 
the 5th century made great efforts to solve, though it was 
not till about 450 that a correct solution was found. A 
certain awkwardness persisted after the conventional naivetés 
had gone. The bodies of the Hestia Giustiniani, of the 
Herculaneum Dancers, and of the Auriga at Delphi, are not 
perceptible beneath the stiff fluted sheath of their skirts; 
but in other contemporaneous works, and particularly in the 
later sculptures of the 5th century, the folds of the dress, 
while retaining their substance and correct direction, are 
adapted to the forms they cover, permittmg the contours 
of the hips and the flexed leg to be perceived. 

The artist, seeking to unite the body and its drapery, 
found two solutions—a drapery that was transparent and a 
drapery that was opaque, according to the importance he 
gave to the figure itself or to its garment, and according to 
whether he observed the precedent principles of the substance 
and weight of the stuff. 

The first was not an exclusively Hellenic creation, Egypt 


had had these figures in which the stuff of the drapery “ exists, 


one might say, only in the imagination’? (Winckelmann). 
The Chaldzans sometimes allow the body to be seen beneath 
its clinging robe. ‘‘ Nothing is more surprising,” said old 
Perrault, with reason, ‘‘ than to see a piece of stuff, instead 
of falling straight as is the natural way of all bodies pos- 
sessing weight, clinging tightly to the whole length of a 
leg that is bent backwards.” Transparent drapery is tech- 
nical in its origin: the attention of the primitive artist is at 
first attracted by the human body, and he only considers the 
question of its clothing later; hence the drapery is sacrificed 
and comes as an afterthought. The transparent drapery of 
drawing in the 5th century is sometimes to be explained by 


1 LXXVIII, p. 467. 


op i es i el att oe a 


A es eee ot OE De ee ey, ae 


Ce ea ee 


DRAPERY 227 


a technical expedient! which modern artists have used (David, 
for example): the artist draws the nude body and clothes 
it afterwards, whence the transparent quality of the drapery 
which allows the silhouette to appear through it. Still rare 
in the earliest red-figure vases, this process later became 
frequent, for example with Douris, Hieron and Brygus. 
The ancients attributed to Polygnotus the honour of having 
first represented transparent drapery in ordinary painting; 
the modern critic knows that the 5th-century Thasian master 
was no innovator in this matter and that he had had prede- 
cessors among painters and sculptors for many a long day.” 
From the morrow of the Dorian invasion and up to the 
6th century, artists had indeed carved and modelled statues 
and statuettes in which the body at first sight seems quite 
-nude, and in which the drapery is only discernible on ex- 
amination. This is sometimes merely painted on (Dipylon 
idols; flat terra cotta figurines with “ bird’s beak”’),? and 
sometimes indicated by a few lines incised or shown in relief 
on the naked body (Moscophoros, Cyprus Kouros).4 With 
the passage of time, folds achieved substance and are better 
rendered, but the stuff continues, none the less, to stick to 
the form; it is moulded on the back and hips of the Korai, 
and it allows the male pudenda to project (Cyprus Kouros, 
Kouros No. 633 of the Acropolis);? the hand which gathers 
up the skirt on one side ought to stretch the material tight 
between the legs, but the stuff indiscreetly insinuates itself 
around and between them (Korai of the Acropolis, relief of 
Hermes and the Charities, Acropolis).° Sometimes even 
the hair appears beneath the stuff (Kore).’ The red-figure 
vases of Epictetus (end of the 6th century) show analogous 
details. © 

Following a general law of evolution,’ technical expedients 
involuntarily become deliberate efforts after beauty in sub- 
sequent periods. The Ionian artists of the 6th century, when 
they moulded the form of the body beneath the stuff, may 
have already transformed into definite sesthetic effort that 

1 OXLYV, vol. iii, pp. 862, 956. 2 Ibid., p. 1068. 

3 LXXXIV, vol. vii, p. 142; CXI, Pl. v. 

4 LXVIII, p. 237; LXXVIII, p. 106. 

° LXXXIX, p. 56. § LXXIX, p. 443. 


7 BCH, 1899, p. 221. ® OXLYV, vol. iii, p. 890. 
® VI, vol. ii, p. 337. 


228 ART IN GREECE 


which at first had been merely inexperience. The problem, 
however, was not completely solved till later, in the second 
half of the 5th century, in the Parthenon, in the marbles of 
Phidias and his imitators. Drapery, as transparent as 
though it were wet, ripples in a number of minutely fine folds 
over the body, of which nothing, however, remains hidden. 
It is impossible to improve on this. Hebe and the “ Parcee ” 
of the east pediment, and Iris of the west pediment, are 
masterpieces in this genre. They inspired the numerous 
sculptors who, since the Parthenon, repeat the principle of 
this transparent drapery: ¢.g., the Nike of Pzeonius of Mende 
(after 425), the Aphrodite called the “‘ Fréjus,” the Victories 
of the balustrade of the temple of Athena Nike (about 408), 
the Xanthus Nereids! (end of the 5th century), the acroteria 
at Delos.2. What a difference from the drapery painted or 
drawn on the bodies of the primitives, or from the sticky 
drapery of the 6th-century Ionians, all as unreal as they 
can be! The stuff now has its proper value, creases into 
folds, follows the movements of the body, and is agitated 
by the least action, but, owing to its lightness and trans- 
parency, which it seems to owe to its texture, and also to 
the breeze which causes it to cling to the skin in figures in 
movement (Nike of Pzonius, Iris of the Parthenon), it leaves 
the human being all its beauty, and is calculated less to dis- 
simulate the form than to emphasize it. Its effects may be 
criticized from the rational point of view; it may seem 
illogical, despite this virtuosity, that the dress should be so 
diaphanous and cling everywhere; one finds it a little difficult 
to believe in these goddesses clothed in wet materials. How- 
ever conventional this process may be in principle, its realiza- 
tion is henceforth conceived with truth and naturalism. Up 
to the end, Greek art testifies to this taste for transparent 
draperies. To quote a few examples taken at random, there 
are, in the 5th century, the Vienna Kore® and its derivatives, 
one of the Thessalians of the Lysippian group at Delphi,* 
the feminine torso from the Tegea pediments;? and, in the 
Hellenistic period, the group of Niobe and her daughter,® 
and the Aphrodite with the sword, from Epidaurus.’ 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 228. 2 Ibid., p. 191. 
3 CLXII, p. 362; CLXIII, p. 15. 
4 Fouilles de Delphes, iv, Pl. lxv; CLX, Fig. 3, Sisyphus i. 


5 BCH, 1901, PI. vi. 6 LXII, vol. ii, p. 538. 7 Ibid., p. 463. 


— 
— ~~ Sh CU 


DRAPERY 229 


The opaque drapery which completely hides the body 
under a rigid and geometrical cope was also, in its inception, 
a happy expedient which avoided the difficulty of musculature, 
and not an esthetic choice: the statue dedicated by Nicandra 
of Delos,’ the Auxerre statuette? in the Louvre, the Treasury 
of the Sicyonians at Delphi,® and numerous figures on the 
black-figure vases, illustrated this appearance in the 6th 
century. The 5th century recognized an esthetic value in 
this heavy drapery with its large and sparsely placed folds, 
beneath which the body disappears, and of this type we 
have the thick himation of the Tralles Caryatid (about 450),* 
and of the Berlin female figure;? also the chlamys of the 
so-called Phocion (Hermes) at the Vatican;° and, in the 4th 
century, that of the Thessalians at Delphi’ and of the Tralles 
_ ephebus?® pensively leaning against a pillar. 

The stuff of drapery may be transparent and _ finely 
creased, when it is graceful, delicate and sensuous in quality; 
or it may be opaque and yielding only large smooth surfaces, 
when it evokes calm and a repose of body and mind. 

There is also a mean between these two contrasting 
tendencies: the body may be allowed to show whenever the 
material permits it by its natural play and its texture; whereas 
it is hidden wherever, in reality, the thickness of the stuff 
or its way of falling would hide it. The long series of women 
draped in the Dorian peplos show the progress achieved in 
this effort to arrive at a just balance; the Hestia Giustiniani 
(about 460) is still covered up in a rigid tunic like a carapace, 
but elsewhere the leg put forward and the swelling chest 
stretch the material, and the Korai of the Erechtheum (about 
415) show the harmonious result when this reconciliation is 
definitely effected. 

The human body and its drapery, whilst each has artistic 
independence, must also lend one another mutual aid and 
bring out one another’s values. The folds of the stuff, with 
its vertical, oblique, and curved lines all directed the same 
way, or cutting each other, contrast with the smooth surfaces 
of the naked skin which are enhanced by its proximity. 


1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 148. 2 RA, 1908, i, Pl. x. 

3 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 454. 4 MP, 1908, PI. ii-iii. 

5 LXIII, p. 116; LXXIV, No. 1518. 

6 LXXXVI, vol. i, p. 511. 

? BCH, 1899, p. 468, Pl. xxv. 8 MP, x, 1903, Pl. iv-v. 


230 ART IN GREECE 


This, the artist of the 6th century who veils the body of his 
female figures and completely strips his male ones, does not 
yet understand. He only rarely associated nudity with 
drapery (Naples stele); he does not yet throw drapery over 
the arms or round the loins with a solely esthetic aim, that 
it may serve to throw up the figure. The chlamys that 
Aristogiton carries over his arm in the Tyrannicides group 
(477-6) is required 
by the subject: the 
assassin uses it as 


his young friend 
Harmodius who ad- 
vances against the 
tyrant, sword raised. 
However, the vase 
painter has already 
; adopted the use of 
/ drapery for this es- 


masters of the red- 
figure work  fre- 
quently hang a 
chlamys over the 
arm of their ephebi 
in order to provide 
a background which 
will throw up their 
nude strength. This 
Fic. 44. East pepimenr at Orympra. 4M Is distinetly per- 
APOLLO. ceptible in the pedi- 
ments at Olympia 
(about 460): the chlamys that falls over the shoulder at the 
back and on the arm of Ginomaus and Apollo (Fig. 44), and 
the drapery around the hips and legs of Zeus, and the figures 
reclining in the angles, have no other purpose than to form 
a contrast by their folds with the unbroken surface of the 
flesh. The Parthenon supplies marvellous examples of this 
(Fig. 45). Doubtless the metopes carved by the older 
sculptors, whose artistic education had not felt the Phidian 
1 LXX, vol. i, p. 256, Fig. 125. 


a buckler to protect — 


thetic end; the 


DRAPERY 231 


influence, disdained drapery; their drily modelled muscu- 
lature is nude, and the grounds against which the Centaurs 
and Lapiths stand out are somewhat empty. But how very 
different are the metopes in which we recognize the teachings 
of the Attic master! Look at that one in which the young 
Lapith is in the act of striking a wounded Centaur on the 
back: the ephebic body, carried forward by an impetuous 
movement, detaches itself in its smooth nudity from the large 
circular folds of the mantle which falls at the back—a nudity 
that stands out as a light figure from the coloured ground 
of the material.!_| What pur- 


pose is served by the drapery peop \ (/ 
on which the Dionysus of the | iN >. Gi \ 


east pediment reclines unless } \G : 
4 


it be to throw up his form? oe \ 

Or what by that of the ample | = 

drapery with its deep folds, h~— 

thrown negligently on the ALAN 

tree-trunk at the side of the NN: ( 2 
: ; IN 

Hermes carrying the infant IN Wal 

Dionysus, in the Praxitelian ) Y, \\ \ 

group at Olympia? What \ l 7] \ 

purpose, again, is served by \ Y 

the rugose animal’s skin of WS 


the Praxitelian Satyrs,” which 
crosses their chests? The ., | 

Fic. 45. DETAIL OF THE NORTH 
stuff of drapery serves less © Fpeze or THE PARTHENON. 
and less its primitive pur- 
pose of clothing, and increasingly becomes a means for the 
realization of beauty. 

The same contrasting effect between one figure and 
another is to be observed. The vase-painters and the 6th- 
century relief sculptors occasionally associated nude figures 
with others that were draped, but this was more often due 
to the necessities of the subject than to any zesthetic purpose. 
In the Pisistratidze pediment,’ though Athena is clothed 
whilst the giant Enceladus at her feet is nude, that is because 
she is a goddess and because art still eliminated feminine 
nudity, whereas it sought after masculine nudity (about 


1 XXXIX ; LXI, vol. ii, p. 15, Fi 2 
2 LXII, vol. ii, pp. 289- 300. se 8 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 553. 


232 ART IN GREECE 


520-510). But from the 5th century artists liked to alternate, 
on vases and in reliefs, and in pediments, draped figures with 
nude ones, and at Olympia the nude CEnomaus and Pelops 
are framed on either side by the semi-nude Zeus and by 
Sterope and Hippodamia draped in the Dorian peplos. 

The problem of adapting drapery not only to the shape 
of the body but to its movements, and of observing and 
rendering the modifications these movements cause in the 
drapery, did not preoccupy the artist until the 5th century, 
and did not until then obtain a satisfactory interpretation. 
Nothing in the foldless chiton, stuck fast to the body, in 
the statue of Nike by Archermus, betokens the rapidity of 
flight. The draughtsman was better able to try and get his 
drapery to float than the sculptor who was obsessed with 
the fear of a breakage. Yet how stiff is this drapery’ still— 
it looks like a rigid pipe—behind the galloping horseman on 
an Ionian vase! The draughtsman even envisages the 
complicated movements of torsion: on the “ Nola ” amphora 
in the British Museum (6th century) an oblique fold, traced 
on the leg of a woman, indicates that she is turning. Ina 
marble torso of a woman at Delphi (6th century), though 
the curls of the hair fall inert, the garment is already slightly 
blown by the wind.2 From the beginning of the 5th century 
such essays are multiplied. It is true that the drapery of 
Aristogiton falls vertically from his arm, despite the energy 
of his movement; but the folds of the drapery of Victories 690 
and 490 of the Acropolis are deviated from the straight by 
the flight of the goddesses.2 In the severe style red-figure 
vase-painting the artist seeks to adapt the movement of 
drapery to that of the body, and in Hieron’s work the solution 
of the problem appears to be expressed correctly for the first 
time. Brygus likes drapery blown out on the breeze. This 
is more faithfully rendered by Euphronius, more rigidly by 
Chachrylion, and more schematically in the cycle of Epictetus. 
Then come the beautiful draperies of Polygnotus, a master 
of fresco, imitated by the ceramists. Progressing steadily, 
they achieved, after 450, perfect accord between the swing 
of the drapery and the action to which it is due. In Phidias’ 


: BCH, 1892, p. 259; LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 300. 
> LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 571. 
* LXXVIII, p. 395; LXXIX, p. 3880. 


DRAPERY 2338 


Parthenon, in the Theseum, at Phigalia (about 420), in the 
Nike of Peonius (after 425), in the temple of Athena Nike, 
the drapery, agitated by the wind, or by running or fighting, 
twists this way and that, clinging against the body or flutter- 
ing in the wind, reinforcing the action of the figure by 
emphasizing its effort and its direction, while at the same 
time it throws up human nudity by the contrast formed 
with its folds (Fig. 46). To bring out movement, folds are 
frequently twisted into spirals and whorls; these are already 
to be seen on vases in 
the style of Brygus, as, 
later on, they are to be 
seen in the cycle of 
Meidias; in sculpture 
they are particularly 
frequent in the Par- 
thenon © (Hebe), at 
Phigalia, in the temple 
of Athena Nike, in 
the Nereids’ monument 
from Xanthus, and at 
the herédon at Trysa. 
Become conventional, 
they persist in art, 
and the Hellenistic 
Telephus reliefs at Per- 
gamum! (2nd century 
B.c.), and the _ neo- 
Attic reliefs,” supply numerous examples. 

This agitation of drapery even becomes artificial? from 
the second half of the 5th century, and, already in the 
Parthenon, is not always necessitated by the action. Some- 
times an exterior puff of wind swells out the drapery of a 
body in repose. Already perceptible in the reliefs of the 
temple of Athena Nike at Phigalia, this feature is later 
developed, and it seems that the breeze—or even a violent 
wind—-blows in the studio of the sculptor. In a Hellenistic 
Myrina terra cotta, Aphrodite is seated tranquilly on the 
swan, but her garment bellies out behind her; on a Roman 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 527. _ ®? Hauser, Neu-attische Reliefs. 
3 VI, vol. iii, p. 268. 


Fic. 46. FRIEZE OF THE MAUSOLEUM AT 
HALICARNASSUS (855-350 B.c.): DETAIL. 


234 ART IN GREECE 


relief the chlamys of a horseman, whose horse is only walking, 
flutters in the wind. In the Mausoleum, the drapery of the 
Delian Artemis with the Hind? is blown in the direction in 
which she is going, as though the wind were pushing her 
from behind. Certain 5th-century statues even present an 
unexpected agitation, difficult to explain, an experiment full 
of danger which may lead to reasonless gusts of wind in the 
manner of Bernini. The drapery floats in different directions 
as though blown by contrary winds. In the Doria Pamphili 
Aphrodite and in a whole group of Attic works later than 
the Parthenon, the drapery is quiescent on the upper portion 
of the body and agitated at its feet.2 Hermes stands erect 
in front of the chariot of Echelus and Basilia (relief of the 
beginning of the 4th century),* and the wind coming from 
behind blows his garment in the direction they are going, 
but an opposite wind blows the feminine draperies out behind. 

Artists had come to love drapery for itself, for its infinite 
plastic variety, and they had somewhat lost sight of its 
harmonious union with the human body which had been 
finally realized after long experimental efforts. From the 
4th century it sometimes engrosses the artist’s attention to 
the detriment of everything else: in certain Praxitelian 
statues, in the Tanagra terra cottas, the main thing for their 
authors is the play of the drapery with its large or fine, oblique 
or vertical folds, and the grouping and contrasting of them. 
However skilfully it may be treated, the body sometimes 
seems as though reduced to the réle of a support for the 
drapery. And finally, in Roman times, an artist was to 
represent a piece of drapery cleverly disposed on a throne 
empty of its divine image. 

Drapery became more than a means of esthetic expression, 
more than a sensuous delight for the eyes; it became a 
psychological element, a means of transcribing the intimate 
self, its rank, sex and even thoughts, with the same authority 
as the pose or the countenance. Vase-painters understood 
this from the end of the 6th century and the beginning of the 
5th,* before the sculptors and modellers. They made the 
drapery of courtesans and of the frenzied Mznads boil and 


1 Proceedings of the Acad. des Inscript., 1907, p. 367. 
2 VI, vol. ii, p. 459; vol. iii, p. 271, note 2. 
8 LXII, vol. ii, p. 190. 4 CXLY, vol. iii, p. 861. 


DRAPERY 235 


swirl in a thousand folds (Fig. 47); they contrasted this with 
the calm perpendicularity of the Dorian peplos in which 
matrons and goddesses are clothed; they rendered broadly 
the plane surfaces of the himation of sturdy ephebi. Then 
they all began with one accord to try to adapt drapery to the 
moral character of the person portrayed. Look at the cele- 
brated relief of Eleusis (about 450). The vigorous nude body 
of Triptolemus, emphasized by the drapery which serves as 
background, is contrasted 
with the two draped 
goddesses who stand on 
either side of him. De- 
meter wears a_ severe 
peplos, with rigid grooves, 
which suits the gravity 
of the maternal and sor- 
rowing goddess. But a 
chiton with supple folds, 
and himation liberally 
draped, accentuate the 
youthful character of her 
daughter Cora. On the 
east end of the Parthenon 
the grave and majestic 
drapery of the Eleu- 
sinian goddesses, seated, 
in the left wing, is quite 
different from the supple ¥!¢ 47. B ageenaits faeeenn ance 
transparent drapery of 
Dione and Aphrodite (“‘ Parce’’). The 4th century intro- 
duced still further subtleties into this expressive drapery, 
and the products of the Tanagra modellers’ show drapery 
rendering the most diverse meanings, and the most subtle 
interpretations of the inner self.° 

Drapery in the 6th century was still unreal, conventional 
and decorative; in the 5th century it is truthful, but it often 
preserves that same character of somewhat artificial regularity 
and abstraction that we have already noted in the musculature 
of the time, and a too rigorous symmetry: in the Berlin 
Amazon (Polyclitus), for example, the folds on the right 

1 LXIl, vol. ii, p. 141. 2 OVII. 3 VI, vol. iii, p. 268. 


236 ART IN GREECE 


exactly correspond with those on the left side. Drapery is 
above all architectural, and tends to emphasize the effects 
of stability and repose. On female figures the parallel folds 
of the Dorian peplos are directed perpendicularly, like the 
flutings of a living column; the Hestia Giustiniani and the 
Herculaneum Dancers exaggerate this feature, which becomes 
softened in the second half of the 5th century. But the 4th 
century and the Hellenists introduce the same note of realism 
and picturesqueness as they did in musculature. They seek 
to imitate more exactly the thousand little accidents of a 
real piece of stuff. The chlamys of the Olympian Hermes is 
thrown negligently on the trunk of the tree, the folds crease, 
intercross and pile up under the arm of the god; here and 
there light undulations wrinkle the woollen tissue, and the 
artist pushes his care for detail so far as to indicate the hole 
made in the stuff by the pin which served to hold it. The 
realism is such that a savant, to whom the first photographs 
of this statue were shown, exclaimed: “It is very fine, but 
why, when they took the photograph, did they leave that 
cloak hanging there ?” What suppleness and what virtuosity 
is there in these beautiful draperies of the Mausolus statue,! 
and what refined observation! To get closer to nature and to 
vary the aspect of the stuff, the sculptor cuts with parallel 
striations the folds determined by the gestures of the figure: 
these are the creases left in the material as a result of being 
folded up in a chest. This feature also appears at Delphi on 
the statue of one of the Thessalians,? and in Pergamenian 
plastic work. Differences in tissues are indicated, such as 
the impression given by a light and silky stuff (Delos statue),° 
and the transparency of a silk himation on a chiton of thicker 
material.* Thus drapery loses all its dryness, and is treated 
more and more pictorially. 
1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 839; LXIII, p. 256. 
2 BCH, 1899, p. 463; VI, vol. iii, p. 267. 


’ BCH, 1907, p. 407; LXIII, p. 299. 
4 VI, vol. iii, p. 320. 


sa et, eae a 


CHAPTER V 


THE ANALYTIC AND SYNTHETIC VIEW. HARMONY, 
RHYTHM, “SYMMETRIA,” PROPORTION, COM- 
POSITION? 


THE artist, through this patient education, learned to render 
truthfully attitude, musculature, and drapery, and _ their 
correct reciprocal relations. He examined their infinite 
variety and drew therefrom esthetic effects hitherto un- 
dreamed of. But he had to make further progress and unite 
all these elements into one faithful yet harmonious whole. 

The human mind does not at the outset rise to synthesis. 
The child and the primitive are attracted by details. The 
former remarks, in a man, his hat and his pipe; the man of 
lowly culture gives his attention to analogous futilities. The 
individual education of the artist, as the general evolution of 
art, begins by this stage of analytic perception, and only in 
the course of time rises to the synthesis that neglects super- 
fluous and minute detail and establishes the proper correlation 
between all the parts of a whole—an organic unity in place of 
a sum of disparate parts. The Greek artist, prior to 500, 
justified those words of Delacroix: ‘‘ To know how to sacrifice 
to the whole is great art of which novices are ignorant; they 
want to put in everything.”’ 

It was the minutie which attracted the artist. The 
authors of the dreadful ivory dolls of the Dipylon (9th 
century)” were still incapable of correctly representing the 
body anatomically, but they did not neglect to put in the 
meander which runs along the polos of the goddess, a purely 
accessory element. This love of detail, though general, is 
more evident in some regions and in some artists than in 
others. Peloponnesian art, more sober and more robust by 
nature than Ionian art, is not so prone to multiply trumpery 
trifles; none the less, it, too, squandered time on detailing the 
hair, line by line, in putting in every hair on the pubis, and 

1 VI, vol. ii, p. 453; vol. iii. 2 LXXXIV, vol. vii, p. 142. 

237 


238 ART IN GREECE 


there is, as it were, a discordance between this minute work 
and the massive build of the Kouros of Polymedes of Argos 
(6th century).' The Ionian sculptors abandoned themselves 
unreservedly to this debauch of detail, to which they were 
urged by their innate desire to please, their coquetry, and 
their love of luxury. The drapery of the Korai is covered 
with minute pleats and embroideries. But the hair, in par- 
ticular, provided the artist with the happy occasion to display 
his instinctive taste. The hairs of a head defy enumeration, 
and so, too, do the modes of arranging it in spirals, waves, 
whorls, diaper and bead! There are a hundred fashions 
of tiring it with circlets and diadems! And then the ears 
cry out for cunningly chiselled ear-rings, and the arms for 
bracelets. This is due to a desire to make the figure look 
elegant, no doubt, but it is also due to an instinctive love of 
detail for its own sake, that by its means a pretty ornament 
or a decorative motif may be contrived. The Rampin head,? 
with its minutely executed hair contrasting with the broader 
work on the face, and a masculine head at Delos® are sig- 
nificant in this connection. In the Sunium Kouros,* whose 
gigantesque size should have called for a sober method of 
execution, the artist, on the contrary, refines the curve of the 
ear, transforms the cartilages into a kind of Ionic capital, and 
erects on the forehead an amazing assemblage of whorls 
looking for all the world like fossil ammonites. Hence the 
expert who studies archaic art must not shrink from spending 
time on details; he must do as the artist did then, and so get 
at his ideas. 

This detail, however, was detrimental to the ensemble. 
The artist did not yet know how to establish the proper accord 
between the different parts which each individually claimed 
his attention. He made a number of mistakes in anatomy 
before he arrived at rendering each part in its proper size, 
its correct position, and in relation with the attitude assumed. 
This was partly due to a lack of observation and fluency of 
technique, but it was also due to his predominant habit of 
looking at things analytically. Thence came his errors in the 
logical linking up of different organic parts, which he would 


LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 454. 


1 
2 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 641; LXXVIIL, p. 197. 
* BCH, v, 1881, Pl. xi; LXXVIII, p. 185. 4 LXVIII, p. 135. 


*. ss : 
EE ee ya a ee. ere 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 239 


allow to contradict one another—eyes placed frontally in a 
head in profile, and a frontal torso on legs seen sideways. He 
did not free himself from these errors till he substituted the 
truth of the whole for the truth of separate parts, and this 
was when sculpture gave up frontality and when drawing 
had learned to foreshorten. 

Numerous examples of this faulty co- )-ordination can be 
quoted in the 6th century and in the first half of the 5th, 
although from 500 the artist gradually freed himself from his 
errors by a closer observation of reality. 

The drapery sticks to the loins of the Acropolis Korai 
(6th century); it clings between their legs, although the left 
hand stretches the stuff and the left leg is put forward: it 
ought here to form a rigid plane surface. The artist did not 
trouble himself about this correlation between his drapery 
and the form and movements of the body. See, on the 
contrary, how, a century later (about 420), the sculptor of 
the Phigalian frieze stretches the stuff tight across the legs 
of an Amazon who is moving quickly, so that it seems like 
to tear." In one Kore the folds of the himation are oblique 
when they ought to fall perpendicularly; one cannot suppose 
that they have swung rearwards owing to a forward move- 
ment, because the statue is immobile; the artist, in his desire 
to break the monotony of parallel folds, has not asked himself 
whether this was true to nature. 

None the less there was correct observation from this 
time forward. Ona metope of the Treasury of the Sicyonians 
at Delphi, the mantle of Europa,’ folded in four and placed 
over the arm, falls vertically; on a metope of Temple F at 
Selinus® the drapery of the overthrown giant falls plumb 
straight, as does that of Kore No. 687 of the Acropolis.‘ 

Such errors, however, appear sporadically in the 5th 
century. The chlamys of Aristogiton, inert, does not follow 
the energetic movement of the body when it ought to be 
swung out by the resistance of the air to his swift oncoming 
movement. Later on the chlamys of the Apollo Belvedere’ 
(4th century) is also artificial, and this is doubtless due to a 
clumsy addition to the original bronze by the Roman iden 


1 LXII, vol. ii, P. 159. 2 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 4 


3 Tbid.. p. 498 ‘ LXXVIIL p. 236. 
5 LXII, vol. ii, D. 317; RA, 1904, ii, p. 225. 


240 ART IN GREECE 


On a cup by Chachrylion the two points of the himation 
thrown over the shoulders come together at the bottom 
instead of falling straight. And on the Acropolis relief 
(about 450) the chiton of the Athena wrongly called the 
‘* Mourning,” who is leaning forward, falls impossibly slant- 
wise (Fig. 48). 
The same is true of anatomy. .The neck of the Acropolis 
bull, in soft stone (6th century), being considerably arched, 
the skin here ought to be tightly 
stretched, but it is all wrinkled. 
The scales on the body of Triton do 
not participate in the movement of 
his nether parts, but form a rigid 
cuirass without a crease.' The hand 
of a man, fighting, rests placidly on 
the shoulder of his enemy, in an 
Acropolis group, instead of grasping 
it as one feels it should. 


join between the two disparate 
elements is bizarre. On a Boeotian 
vase in relief (7th century)’ the 
Gorgon is a human being to which 
there has simply been added on the 
hinder parts of a horse with no 
organic connection; the composition 
of the archaic Centaur is of the 
same order. On an Attic-Corinthian 
; vase Triton has an entire human 

Fic 48. Reiter or THE body to which is fastened a fish’s 
ATHENA OF THE PILLAR, tail which one would say Was 

artificial. 

Each single element of the body is treated separately, 
for itself alone, with no regard for its neighbouring elements. 
The hair is too often independent of the shape and pose of the 
head. The hair of the Blond Ephebus (before 480),° regularly 
combed, ought to fall away from the point of departure of the 
two tresses, as had been learned later by the author of the 
Apollo of the Omphalos. But the tresses do not follow the 


1 LXXVIII, pp. 36, 75, 406. 2 BCH, 1898, Pl. v. 
3 LXXVIII, p. 362. 


In the composite monsters the- 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 241 


movement. Those of the Nike of Archermus, in full flight, 
keep quite rigid. How many figures bend their heads without 
their locks following suit and falling perpendicularly, as they 
should—in the 6th century the Hoplitodromos of the Athens 
stele,t in the first half of the 5th century the Spinario, the 
Barberini Girl Runner, the goddesses of the Eleusis relief, 
one of the reclining figures at Augina, and Achilles on a red- 
figure vase. There is no harmonious transition between the 
cranium and the hair upon it in the numerous heads of the 
early 5th century; the hair of Harmodius forms an independent 
cap of thick fur. In Polyclitus’ Doryphoros the nipples are 
still stuck on like bits of ornamentation, without any con- 
nection with the surrounding skin. The movement is localized 
in a single limb and has no repercussion throughout the body, 
and when the trunk is turned its relation to the legs is faulty. 
In the Doryphoros there is still a certain want of mutual 
easiness and naturalness between the different parts of the 
body. 

There is the same want of accord in poses; on an Ionian 
relief there is a galloping stag, but the dog that is biting its 
belly is shown in repose; on a Palakastro terra cotta relief 
(6th century), the chariot has started, but the warrior appears 
to be getting into it from a stationary position.” 

These errors, frequent in archaic work, and rarer in the 
5th century, are general, nevertheless; they appear in all 
periods when the-artist, either clumsy or careless, does not 
closely observe reality and fails to recognize the mutual 
relations between parts. For instance, in a group of Dionysus 
and a Satyr, Dionysus, in repose, leans on the Satyr who is 
moving forward. Many centuries earlier, in Augean art, the 
bull borne on the sarcophagus of Haghia Triada is in the 
conventional flying gallop attitude. And, in the 13th century 
‘in France, the sculptor of an ivory descent from the cross 
makes the same mistake over the hair as the author of the 
Spinario. 

About 500, however, the Greek artist realized that this 
minute regard for detail was peurile and that beauty lies 
above all in sobriety; the aim of art was no longer to pile up 
detail but to get the maximum effect from the simplest of 
means. The Kore of Euthydicus and the Blond Ephebus 


1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 649. 2 VI, vol. ii, pp. 457-458. 
16 


242 ART IN GREECE 


reveal in Attica this new spirit that had come under the 
influence of Dorian art in which it had already for some time 
been visible. Doubtless artists, according to their individual 
temperaments, were still to squander their time picking away at 
hair and drapery, broadly treated by others, and in accumulat- 
ing embellishments; Attic art, from 500, was to show a dual 
tendency in which an Attic-Dorian influence, enamoured of 
simplicity and severe strength, and an Attic-Ionian influence, 
carrying on the Ionian tradition of the 6th century, and 
showing a preference for the refinements of technique,’ flow 
as two currents in one bed; but these are mere subtle dis- 


tinctions, and the day of detail beloved for its own sake and 


without thought for co-ordination, of analysis which never 
leads to synthesis, was past and gone. 

It was realized now that beauty lies in a mutually logical 
and harmonious concord of parts, that a work of art is not 
a mosaic of independent fragments but that from the outset 
it must be set about with its ultimate unity in view, and that 
each part reacts on every other part and is itself subject to 
this reaction. The aim of the artist was now the unity of his 
work and the correct adaptation of its detail to the whole and 
of that whole to some given situation. The earlier faults were 
finally to vanish, and if a few of them persisted into the first 
half of the 5th century, and if the work occasionally betrayed 
a slight want of ease and naturalness in the union of its various 
elements, it is because truth cannot be achieved all at once, 
and the eye and the hand of the artist must have time 
to get accustomed to it. He was learning to manage the 
necessary transitions between one element and another, and 
drapery and hair now fall according to the law of gravity or 
follow the inflections of the figure, whilst action has its re- 
percussion throughout the body, and the muscles change 
according to the attitudes taken. 

This effort to achieve unity is asserted by the rhythm? 
that occupied the main attention of artists from the beginning 
of the 5th century. According to Diogenes Laértius, who 
doubtless is repeating Antigonus of Carystus (8rd century), 
who, in turn, was inspired by Xenocrates of Sicyon, Pytha- 
goras of Rhegium, who began to work about 490, was the first 
to display this rhythmic feeling in statuary.° This was the 

1 LXXVIII, pp. 353, 387. 2 CLXXIX. 3 CLXIV, p. 39. 


ae Se 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 243 


moment when, as a result of liberation from the frontal 
convention, new problems were being faced by the artist. 
Rhythm, or “eurhythmy ’—the two terms mean the same 
thing—is the esthetic impression produced on the spectator 
by the correct concordance of the parts of a whole, their perfect 
and harmonious accord which comes from the adaptation of 
the pose, the gestures, and the musculature to the subject and 
the action, and from the proper relations between figure and 
drapery. Rhythm varies with the temperament and artistic 
feeling of the artist; it is simple in the Polyclitian images, 
which Pliny reproaches with being nearly all conceived on 
the same model; and it is more complex and subtle in Lysip- 
pian work; it is full of movement in Myron and Pythagoras, 
and tranquil in Phidias and Praxiteles. But whatever it be, 
it is essential from this time forth, and it becomes an indis- 
pensable condition for any work of art. Diogenes Laértius, 
repeating from one of his predecessors, praises Pythagoras of 
Rhegium also for having been the first to display the feeling 
for symmetria,’ in which Myron and Lysippus excel, and for 
a legitimate conformity of form and proportion to subject, 
pose, and action. 

The unity and beauty of a work of art also depend on its 
proportions and on the numerical relation of the parts to one 
another. Had not number, at a very early date, already 
regulated architecture, in which, once the temple had been 
constituted, one of the chief cares had been to determine the 
most harmonious relations of the constituent parts to the 
building, the relation of the column to the entablature, of its 
diameter to its height, and the interval separating one from 
another ? According to the legend, the Samian artists 
Rheecus and Theodorus had made a statue of which each of 
them had independently carved one half, the two being then 
put together ;? does not such a method of working presuppose, 
together with obedience to the frontal convention, the 
application of a precise system of measurements ? Thence- 
forward there were “canons,” that is to say “a system of 
measurements which must be such that one can determine 
the dimensions of a single part from the whole, or of the whole 
from one of its parts” (Guillaume). To work out with 
exactitude what such systems were is a difficult task for 


1 CLXIV, pp. 46, 50. 2 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 711. 


244 ART IN GREECE 


scholars; they should bear in mind that these canons were 
more often than not in the eye of the artist rather than a 
matter for his callipers, that they were rather an esthetic 
approximation than a rigorously mathematical code.’ If 
the effort to achieve proportion was pursued in Greek art 
from the archaic period, both in statuary and architecture, it 
became of dominant importance in the 5th century, just 
because the artist was then passing from the analytical view 
of things to the synthetic and so could consciously establish 
the relations of parts to a whole. Polyclitus codified the 
principles of his Argive predecessors, basing on them a precise 
formula, and demonstrating their laws in a treatise whose 
existence is attested by Galen. His Doryphoros, for the 
Ancients, embodied these principles, and it was called the 
“Canon,” the rule, the formula (yévwv).?_ Polyclitus would 
build the entire human body with his module, probably the 
dactylos, because this body is a living architecture, governed 
by number, as is inanimate architecture. ‘‘ That which is 
well”’ he said, “‘ depends on infinitely subtle distinctions and 
is the result of agreement between many numbers.” This 
idea is in full harmony with the spirit of the 5th century 
which proclaimed the necessity for harmony and for the 
co-ordination of parts in a logical whole. 

According to their individual taste, different artists living 
in the same period might adopt different rules of proportion, 
and the same artist might not always keep to one. In the 
severe style red-figure pottery Peithinus loved figures that 
were gracile and delicate; Heiron preferred slimmer figures 
than did Douris; Oltus made his shorter than any master of 
the period; Euphronius in his early days shows thick-set pro- 
portions which he was later to make more elegant, while 
Douris uses both kinds simultaneously. 

Despite individual preferences, one can follow throughout 
Greek art the vicissitudes of two systems of proportion, the 
one slim and tall, the other short.* Aigean art loved the tall, 
spindle-like figure with a pinched-in waist and slender limbs, 
perhaps in imitation of the Egyptian.4 After the wreck of 
Mycenean civilization, and after the ‘ Hellenic Medieval 
Age” which followed it, when the earliest crude monuments 


1 IX, p. 234. 2 LXII, vol. i, p. 490. 
3 VI, vol. ii, pp. 206, 242. 4 CXLYV, vol. iii, p. 621. 


OS ee 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 245 


appear, we get the slender strangulated human form of the 
Dipylon vases and the ivory statuettes of the same provenance, 
and this continued to be the esthetic model generally in 
vogue up to the 6th century, as witness the many small 
bronzes and vase-paintings in which the figures are nine or 
even ten heads in height. Certain scholars consider that this 
canon is inherited from the Mycenzeans and that it is a 
tendency proper to the European spirit represented by the 
Dorian invaders. But must we not also attribute some share 
in this to instinctive feeling, to the primitive and barbaric 
effort after elegance, since this preference for an elongated 
body is also shown in the numerous small Etruscan bronzes, 
and, many centuries later, in our Romanesque art ? 

The Attics accepted this canon in the 6th century. 
Although the Attic-Corinthian vases had formerly shown a 
height of only four or five heads for the human figure, this 
grew to eight or nine, and even more in the black-figure vases, 
and the average in the time of Nicosthenes was from six to 
seven.’ Sculpture, too, carved slender bodies for its Korai 
following on the squat figures in soft stone, and thus returned 
to the old tradition, inherited, so it is said, from the Myce- 
neans. The first half of the 5th century maintained these 
slender proportions.” We see this elegance in the figures of 
Pythagoras of Rhegium, such as in the Louvre Pollux’—if we 
are to admit that it can be attributed to this master; in the 
Auriga at Delphi, in the Apollo of the Omphalos, and in a 
number of other sculptures. After a reaction in the time 
of Phidias, this canon is again placed in honour in the 4th 
century by Praxiteles, Lysippus, Scopas and Euphranor. The 
statues of Lysippus, his Apoxyomenos and his Agias, have 
very long trunks, a very small head, and are about eight heads 
in height.* In the Sicyonian school this canon takes the 
place of the thick-set canon of Polyclitus. Certain Hellenistic 
works, especially the terra cottas of Asia Minor, of Myrina,” 
and the figures in relief on 8rd-century mirrors,° elongate the 
body to exaggeration, and in the Roman period the affectedly 
slender Victories of the Farnese stuccos’ reach a point where 


1 OXLYV, vol. iii, p. 624. 2 Ibid., pp. 1091, 1095, 1107. 
3 CLXIV, pp. 108, 119. 

4 BCH, 1899, p. 448; RA, 1909, i, p. 72. 5 CXII. 

6 BCH, 1884, Pl. xv-xvi. 

7 


Gusman, L’ ari décoratif ad Rome, Pl. 


246 ART IN GREECE 


this tendency becomes almost a caricature of the figure. 
Speaking generally, although this taste is proper to the Attics 
who preserve it to the end with a few momentary eclipses,’ 
it is not peculiar to them, as is proved by the monuments 
quoted from other regions. 

But from very early times there was another ideal which 
evinced a preference for short, square figures giving the 
impression of strength rather than elegance. It used to be 
considered proper to the Dorians, and the opposite ideal to 
the Ionians. Pottier says we should rather put it the 
other way about. Whereas the continental and island Greeks 
inherited from the Mycenezans their taste for elongated 
figures, the Ionians, in contact with Asiatic art, preferred 
shorter proportions, as is witnessed by their vase-paintings, 
the sarcophagi of Clazomenee, and by their reliefs. This canon 
spread from Ionia into eastern Greece, inspiring the massive 
Kouroi of Polymedes of Argos (less than seven heads in 
height), the Eleutherna torso, the small Cretan bronzes, and 
the Corinthian and Attic-Corinthian vases.* It was this 
system of proportions that became that of the Argive school 
of the 6th and 5th centuries; after Polymedes, it was applied 
to their work by Ageladas and his disciples, such as Dionysius 
and Glaucus (Ligourio ephebus), and finally by Polyclitus. 
The last-named artist imposed this conception on art for a 


long time; he gave to the human body a thick-set shape with — 


short torso and legs, wide hips, and square head, and a look 


of powerful strength.? This canon spread beyond the 


Peloponnese, and was adopted by certain Attic vase-painters 
of the end of the 5th century, even by the Attic sculptor 
Phidias and by his disciples, who nevertheless tempered this 
strength with the innate grace and elegance of the Attics. 
If the statues of Phidias, and still more so those of Polyclitus, 
appear to our modern view a little too massive, it is because, 
thanks to the intermediation of the Romans and of the 
Renaissance, we have adopted, rather, the elegant canon of 
Praxiteles and of Lysippus.* 

We may see in Greece, within the boundaries of a single 
country, an alternation of long and short proportions, which 

1 BCH, 1899, p. 448. 


2 CXLV, vol. ii, p. 509; iii, pp. 622, 628, 624. 
3 BCH, 1900, p. 456; RA, 1909, i, p. 50. 4 RA, 1895, ii, p. 22. 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 247 


is to be found, as a matter of fact, in the history of all art. 
To the heavy and squat Attic work in soft stone (end of the 
7th and beginning of the 6th centuries) succeeded the elegant 
and affected insular Korai (second half of the 6th century); 
Phidias reduced the elongated proportions in vogue before his 
time, but Praxiteles restored them to honour. In the Argive- 
Sicyonian school, though Polyclitus carried on the ancient 
tradition, Lysippus modified this too square and squat system. 

Nevertheless we notice a general tendency to lengthen 
proportions, towards elegance. The columns of the earliest 
Doric temples (example: Corinth)! are squat, the echinus of 
the capital seems crushed under the weight of the abacus, 
and the entablature is enormous. Gradually the column is 
lengthened, becoming slenderer, the curve of the echinus is 
straightened and the height of the entablature diminished. 
When the Doric order attained, in the Parthenon, a perfection 
which is already disturbed by alterations in an Ionian sense, 
the satisfaction of this desire for elegance and slimness came 
to be sought elsewhere. The Ionic order, hitherto confined 
to Greece in Asia, took root on the continent and provided 
there its first architectural examples (Propylea, temple of 
Athena Nike, Erechtheum) whose tall, slender columns, less 
heavy entablature, and ornament richer than that of the 
sober Doric, are so pleasing.” 

This tendency to unity not only affects the isolated 
human figure but figures in common action. The group — 
develops in the same manner from something analytically 
seen to something seen synthetically. How did the artist 
carry out a group in the early days? We must distinguish, 
as we did earlier, between works conceived in the round to 
be seen from the front and those which derive from drawing 
and from relief, the first being governed by the rules of 
volume and the others by those of drawing—of projection on 
to a plane surface. It is relatively easier in drawing and 
relief, in which the side-view predominates, to group a number 
of figures with a satisfactory regard for truth; doubtless the 
lack of knowledge of foreshortening leads to odd conventions, 
but the draughtsman does not meet with the obstacle that 
faces the modeller in the round—that rigorous rule of fron- 
tality which forces the sculptor to make his statue face the 

1 XXXVIII, vol. vii, pp. 873, 420. 2 See above, p. 131 ff. 


248 ART IN GREECE 


spectator without allowing him a single flexion, and which 
hinders all organic connection.’ It was in drawing that 
groups first evolved in which combatants confront and are 
entwined with one another, and it was drawing that inspired 
them in statuary in the round (pediments of the Acropolis, 
7th and 6th centuries). 

A primitive method of grouping, in the round and even 
in drawing, instinctive in children and in inexperienced adults 
in ancient and modern times, consists in juxtaposing two or 
more figures face to face, each one being conceived by itself 
and sufficing unto itself. The art of Egypt and Asia never 
got beyond this stage, nor did any art that did not follow the 
progressive course pursued in Greece. The Hellenic artist 
adopted this method of grouping to begin with, and the link 
by which he sought to unite these supernumeraries set up in 
a row like so many ninepins is extremely naive. The figures 
in a 7th-century Presus terra cotta,” and Dermys and Citylus 
on the Tanagra stele,’ are petrified in their frontality, each 
one encircling the shoulder of the other with one arm, and, 
in order to conform to the rules of symmetry, advance each 
a leg, the right on one side and the left on the other—an 
awkward connection in which, moreover, the gesture is 
localized and has no effect on the rest of the body which 
remains in complete repose. 

There were other queer conventions as well. Sometimes 
the bodies are stuck together like the Siamese Twins (Cypriot 
terra cottas), and sometimes the other elements of the group 
are painted or modelled in relief on one of the figures. 


Women, dancing round in a circle, are painted on the dress® 


of the Beeotian geometrical idols;* a dancing girl is modelled 
on the robe of Artemis in a 6th-century terra cotta from 
Corcyra;’ there is a winged Eros in relief on the breast of 
a seated Aphrodite in a 5th-century statuette in terra cotta 
from Camarina.° The group is thus reduced to a single figure 
on which the others are projected, which gets over the 
necessity of treating them in the round. This convenient 
expedient persisted for a long time, and the Hecateum of 
Alcamenes,’ where the circle of dancing women dance round 


1 See above, p. 181. > CCXII, p. 166. 
3 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 521. 4 LXXXIV, vol. vii, p. 150. 
> BCH, 1891, PL vn, p. Ths 6 MA, 14, pp. 869-870, Fig. 74. 


e JOAI, 1910, p. 873, REA, 1911, p. 144. 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 249 


the divine triple body, shows that it was still being employed, 
although consciously and with greater skill. To sum up, 
union was sought by means of still faulty gesture or by 
conventional artifices. 

The group properly so-called, where there is a real con- 
nection proceeding from the nature of the subject, a correct 
repercussion of the constituent parts on the whole, is a victory 
for Greek art won simultaneously in drawing and in sculpture 
in the round. It resulted from the progress realized at the 
beginning of the 5th century—the breaking-down of the 
frontal convention, the knowledge of foreshortening and of 
anatomy, and the desire for co-ordination. It is essential, 
for a plastic group to be possible and to conform to reality, 
that the figures should be capable of bending in all directions 
in natural and not conventional attitudes which shall con- 
nect one with another; it is essential that these movements 
should involve correct anatomical repercussions, and it is 
essential, too, that over and above this physical truth there 
should be spiritual unity—that there should be an inner as 
well as an outer bond. 

It has been said that the first genuine plastic group is that 
in the west pediment at Olympia. But this Centauromachy 
is conceived according to the principle of relief in which 
grouping is easier than in the round. Real progress in 
grouping had already been revealed, before this, in the 
Tyrannicides of Critius and Nesiotes (477-476).1 If there 
was still a certain awkwardness in the junction of torso and 
pelvis, in the too lifeless drapery, and in the transmission of 
the action throughout the body, there was now at last a 
more subtle bond. With his extended arm covered with the 
cloak, Aristogiton protects, as with a shield, his young friend 
Harmodius who is advancing on the tyrant: the two figures 
become inseparable—the gesture of the one is a consequence 
of the gesture made by the other. 

In contemporaneous vase-painting certain ceramists 

-already bear witness to great skill in grouping, while others 
show rather a lack of it: if Douris often juxtaposes figures 
in the old way, Euphronius knows how to link up attitudes 
correctly, for example that of Silenus and Hermes walking 
with arms entwined.” The genuine group is in existence 

1 LXXVIII, p. 448. 2 JOAI, 1900, ili, p. 125. 


250 ART IN GREECE 


from the first quarter of the 5th century; it is very quickly 
perfected in the sense of a closer and more correct co-ordination 
of its constituent elements. 

It occasionally retains the earliest principle of juxta- 
position where it is intended to be seen only from the front, 
particularly when it is to be set up against a wall. In such 
groups movement and action are generally slight or non- 
existent: the members of the group are living beings, tran- 
quilly posed before the spectator and united in no more than 
a common idea. The east pediment at Olympia (about 460), 
the ex voto of the Athenians at Delphi (about 460),’ that of 
the Thessalians at Delphi (4th century),? show statues placed 
side by side but independent of one another. There are 
also two ephebi side by side, and a young man and a young 
woman (in the groups known as Orestes and Pylades, and 
Orestes and Electra),? who fraternally link arms, but with 
an ease unattainable by the old image-maker of the Dermys 
and Citylus. If there is violent action, the images are con- 
ceived as in a relief and are governed by the rules of drawing 
as formerly: such, for instance, is the group of Athena and 
Marsyas by Myron. 

Note the different conceptions in the two Olympia pedi- 
ments. In one (east pediment), the statues, full-face and in 
repose, are simply set up side by side. This absence of 
connection has been mistakenly criticized, since it results 
from the nature of the subject. The sacrifice is being pre- 
pared; all, in the invisible presence of Zeus, hold themselves 
quite still, waiting in a religious silence: there is no action, 
it is a calm that is absolute. In the west pediment, on the 
contrary, there is a furious mélée in which Centaurs and 
Lapiths grapple with one another; here there are knots of 
two and three fighters, conceived in the manner of a relief 
rather than as statues in the round. 

A statuary group designed to be seen from all sides and 
not only from the front, of which no part is sacrificed to any 
other part no matter whence it is viewed—the group that is 
a group in volume and not deprived of its depth—comes 
later still. Seen from the side, the Tyrannicides and the 
earlier aligned sets of figures are defective in one aspect in 


1 Bourguet, Les ruines de Delphes, p. 40. 2 Ibid., p. 195. 
3 LXTI, vol. ii, p. 662. 


. 
4 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 251 


which certain parts are mutually covered, and they have 
no thickness. But we can walk all round the Florence 
Boxers (4th century),' the Child with the Goose by Boethus 
(2nd century),’ and get a satisfactory view from a number 
of points. In Hellenistic times the pvinciples of perspective 
were applied even to groups, in which the constituent elements 
were disposed in different planes (Niobids group, punishment 
of Dirce, etc.).* To arrive at this point Greek art had to 
familiarize itself with volume and perspective, new acquisi- 
tions that will be noted later. This was the culminating 
point of the synthetic effort, of the desire to subordinate 
the parts to the whole, whereas hitherto there had always 
remained some lacuna. 

Later on, when Roman art was declining to its technical 
decadence (8rd century a.D.), and in its provincial productions 


Fic. 49. PEDIMENT OF THE HyprRA. END OF THE 7TH CENTURY. 
ATHENS ACROPOLIS. 


at all times, we find this primitive simple juxtaposition in 
statues and reliefs: the figures are presented full-face, stiffened 
in the frontality that has once more got the upper hand, and 
with no connection between them. 

The same development is to be seen in the composition 
of pediments, that is to say in more complex grouping. 
The designer experienced considerable difficulty in furnishing 
this triangular field before he finally arrived at a happy and 
harmonious solution.* The technical exigencies of this empty 
space, in the beginning, were despotic. In order to fill them 
without exerting any effort of imagination, artists resorted 
to a display of the coils of serpentine monsters such as 
Tritopator, Triton, and Hydra (Acropolis, soft stone pedi- 
ments of the end of the 7th and beginning of the 6th century), 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 592. 2 Ibid., p. 603. 8 Ibid., p. 535. 
4 LXXVII, p. 40; LXXVIII, pp. 25, 48-44, 49. 


Pee Cae ee ea a ak Oe Py Ce I | oe@e 


252 ART IN GREECE 


which they trailed and looped so as to fill the angles and 
empty spaces (Fig. 49). The figures were gradually dimin- 
ished in size as they approached the corners, so that they 
might be fitted into the diminishing space, and no effort 
was made to bring their height into natural relation with 
their actions, and, in the Hydra pediment,! Iolaus, erect, 
is quite small. The poses were governed by the exigencies 
of the field: Europa on a metope of the Treasury of the 
Sicyonians at Delphi,? the Hoplitodromos on an Attic stele,° 
the horses in Heracles’ chariot in the Hydra pediment, bend 
their heads simply and solely because there is not sufficient 


\ AT ( 
a 


Fic. 50. DETAIL ON A Cup By Douris (BERLIN MUSEUM). 


space for them to be carried erect. The theme might even 
be modified by the frame. In the legend, the sea monster 
grips Heracles by the heel, but in the Hydra pediment 
the creature is placed far away from the hero because 
there is not enough room for it to be put close to him. 
Gradually the artist frees himself from this technical con- 
straint; he realizes that his subject should not be despoti- 
cally governed by its frame but that it should be disposed 
therein easily and naturally, with a central point and sym- 
metrically balanced wings, and that some bond is required 
between the constituent elements of the whole. In short, 


1 LXXVIII, p. 24. * LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 461. 
3 Ibid., p. 649. 


' ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 253 


it begins to be borne in upon him that the composition of 
_a pediment is subject to laws of its own, and he sets himself 
to learn them. 

In the earlier pediments the wings were not symmetrically 
balanced; the motifs were unequally distributed, and one 


2S 


Fic. 51. PEDIMENT OF THE CORFU TEMPLE, 6TH CENTURY. 


side might be overcrowded while the other was sparsely 
furnished or almost empty. Progress in this was realized 
in the second half of the 6th century. The pediment of the 
Treasury of the Megarians,’ of the Corfu temple? (Fig. 51), 
and of the Hekatompedon of the Pisistratide® already shows, 
as the centre of gravity of the composition, such a central 


a east 
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SH RAE RG 
SA FENG 
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: rr eeseeens Pighay 
RS ia nen ia ena aE ree | j 


Fic. 52. WEST PEDIMENT OF TEMPLE OF APHHA, ANGINA, 
ABOUT 475. 


figure—the Gorgon, or Athena—and corresponding groups 
on either side. This principle of exact compensation was 
undoubtedly Dorian in its provenance, and it was to remain 
one of the principles regulating Greek art up to the end. 
The first half of the 5th century is mathematical in its 


1 Olympia, 1890-1897. 2 RA, 1911, ii, p. 1; 1914, ii, p. 130. 
3 LXXVIII, p. 306. 


254 ART IN GREECE 


rigorous observance of this symmetry: the central figure is 
almost like the needle of a balance at Aigina (Fig. 52) and 
at, Olympia (Figs. 58 and 54), and each wing repeats, almost 
exactly, the disposition of the figures in the other. This can 
be somewhat monotonous. Yet the progress made is un- 
deniable: the pediment now has the unity, balance and 


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Fic. 53. WEST PEDIMENT AT OLYMPIA, ABOUT 460. 


equilibrium indispensable to it, instead of the former disorder. 
And this conception is well adapted to the architectural 
frame, because henceforth the sculpture will be governed by 
the number and rhythm that inspire the entire building. 
What a happy relation there is between the statues of the 
(inomaus pediment (Olympia) and the perpendicular lines 
of the triglyphs and of the columns whose lines they seem 


OE ABAZA ail “lin aN iw aD = ———— 
as Coane PNA PN ets a DR PY Tas 
2 ANAS INE Ny \? Hit amis a 


a re hy 


Fic. 54. EAST PEDIMENT AT OLYMPIA, ABOUT 460. 


to continue! Unity is also realized by the common action 
participated in by all the figures distributed equally from 
one end of the pediment to the other. In the soft stone 
pediments of the Acropolis one side may be entirely occupied 
by a single impassive spectator of large dimensions (Trito- 
pator), whilst the fight is concentrated in the other wing; 
there is no equilibrium. But now the ingredients of equal 
action to left and right of the centre figure are prescribed 


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Z 
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a 
* 
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ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 255 


with the nicety of a chemical formula. Movement and 
repose, likewise, are logically distributed. In the centre is 
set the calm figure of the god—Athena at Augina, Apollo or 
Zeus at Olympia; in the corners are extended inert dying 
figures (Aigina), or tranquil spectators (Olympia). Between 
the extremities are energetic groups of fighters, the most 
violent action being disposed nearest to the centre. In 
order to accentuate the finished character of the composition, 
the figures in the corners are sometimes looking round at 
the centre and curiously watching what is going on (Olympia); 
or they may face the centre; they thus appear to lead the 
attention of the spectator towards this point and deliberately 
to prevent it from straying beyond the limits of the rigorous 
frame. The centre motif and the reclining figures in the 
corners constitute the terms and stops of the composition— 
a sort of sculptural punctuation. 

The progressive lowering of the coping in the 5th century 
necessitated, as had already been the case in the 6th, the 
placing of erect figures towards the centre, the tallest being 
exactly in the middle, and then, in either wing, as the corner 
was approached, first stooping, then kneeling, and finally 
reclining figures. These poses no longer look as though they 
had been dictated by the frame, but appear as if they were 
the natural consequence of the subject itself and of the 
necessities of the action. In the centre may be the god, 
Athena, Zeus or Apollo, of superhuman stature, as is fitting 
for divine beings; on either side, the warriors, erect, then the 
archers, kneeling to take aim, and the wounded whose 
agonies bring them low, and seated servitors, and, finally, 
in the corners, the dying and the dead, and careless spectators. 
The sculptor takes great pains, too, to treat his subject in 
groups, and to unite these groups to one another in such a 
way as to achieve a perfect decorative continuity from one 
end of the pediment to the other. This is still to seek at 
AAgina: there, the figures in the round are conceived as 
isolated entities placed in juxtaposition; they confront one 
another in the fight but without any organic link, and there 
is no grouping, in the strict sense of the word. In the 
Olympia Centauromachy we have connection and grouping; 
the figures press close together and the eye runs_over the 
arabesque they form without being arrested by a single gap. 


256 ART IN GREECE 


Material and spiritual unity has been acquired in the 
first half of the 5th century. In the Parthenon, Phidias 
adds nothing to these fundamental principles; he contents 
himself with softening the former too rigid application of 
them and with bringing more subtlety to this unity (Fig. 55). 
He respects the rule of symmetry, but he relieves it of its 
schematic character; the isolated figures and the groups 
always correspond with one another in the two wings but 
without being almost replicas of their opposite numbers; 
there is analogy in their disposal, their mass, their attitudes, 
but there is no longer identity. There is always a central 
motif, but instead of being a single upright figure as immobile 
aS a stay supporting the roof-tree, he has a group whose 
members, in differing poses, leave empty spaces between 
them (Zeus seated, and Athena standing erect before him, 


Fic. 55. WEST PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON, 439-4383. 


east pediment), or are symmetrically placed (Poseidon and 
Athena erect and starting suddenly back from one another, 
west pediment). The frame and its limits are less material. 
In this triangle, symbolic of the vault of heaven, the miracle 
of the divine birth, at which the gods and heroes of myth 
are present, is accomplished in the period between day and 
night, between the quadrigas of Helios and Selene. The 
composition is no longer so rigorously punctuated. Helios 
and Selene, driving their’ quadrigas, rise from the waist up 
from the tympanum—a manifest borrowing from the great 
painting of Polygnotus—-and, directing all the movement from 
left to right, cause it to describe a sort of trajectory. 
Although the Roman artist was the disciple of the Greeks, 
he sometimes neglected these rules which had been taught 


by experience and esthetic feeling; he did not shrink from 


le 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 257 


placing a smaller figure in the centre; he did not necessarily 
observe the regular decrease in height of the figures; he 
freely employed motifs to fill 
up and furnish the corners, 
and his floating lemniscus is 
reminiscent of the convenient 
coils of the older serpents. 
Thanks to his carelessness and 
slackness and his blunter sense 
of equilibrium and composition, ~ 
he often repeated the archaic 
expedients that classical masters 
had abandoned. 

The composition of metopes 
lends itself to a like examina- 
tion." The artist gradually 
learned what were the best principles to guide him in 
furnishing this rectangular frame, of which Oriental art 
could give him no examples. At first he hesitated—now 
crowding it with figures and 
attributes (quadriga, Perseus 
, and the Gorgon, Heracles and 
the Cercopes, Selinus temple, 
6th century;” the Argosy, me- 
tope of the Treasury of the 
Sicyonians at Delphi);? now 
leaving the field too empty, 
only putting into it a single 
figure. As with the pediments, 
he distributes his elements 
badly, filling the whole of the 

right by the huge figure of the 
. ae Gorgon and only leaving a 
KYA JD + w2d limited space for Perseus and 
Athena (metope at Selinus) 
' (Fig. 56). Sometimes there is 

Fic. 57. HERACLES AND ATLAS, . 
METOPE AT OLYMPIA, ABOUT 460. overmuch action, and some- 
times there is none at all. 
There is no bond between the different metopes, each one 
having its independent subject. The figures are sometimes 


1 LXXVII, p. 45. 2 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 483.  ° Ibid., p. 459. 
17 


Fic.56. PERSEUS AND THE GOR- 
GON, SELINUS, 6TH CENTURY. 


npr © Ka ay 
: / 


Ih 


258 ART IN GREECE 


almost in the round, sometimes they are also facing the 
spectator, and the Selinus quadriga comes right at one. The 
artist finally realized his errors. This limited field lent itself 
to the display of a couple of figures engaged in a definite 
action, in opposing and balanced attitudes. The action is 
broken up into a series of analogous episodes, which, by 
their likeness to one another, establish the necessary bond 
between the different metopes, and by their differing poses 
and lines, obviate monotony (Centauromachy of the Parthe- 
non). There is a correspondence of similitude or of opposi- 
tion between the perpendicular lines of the triglyphs and 


Fic.58. HERACLESCLEANING THE Fic. 59. HERACLES AND THE 
AUGEAN STABLE, METOPE AT AMAZON, METOPE AT SELINUS, 
OLYMPIA, ABOUT 460. 5TH CENTURY. 


columns and the lines of the metopes as given by the poses 
of the figures they contain; these lines may be vertical (the 
metope of Heracles and Atlas, Olympia) (Fig. 57); diagonal 
(metopes of Heracles cleaning the Augean stable, Heracles 
and the Cretan Bull, Olympia) (Fig. 58);* and oblique (metope 
of Temple E at Selinus, Heracles and the Amazon) (Fig. 59), 
ete. This new science of composition works out a solution 
of the problems facing it, as was done with the pediments, 
during the first half of the 5th century, and here, too, Phidias, 
in the Parthenon, had merely to refine and give greater 
subtlety to the work of his predecessors. . 
2 LXII, vol. i, p. 429. 


ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 259 


There was the same study of considered and ordered 
composition in the frieze,| which had been pursued in the 
Ionian, Corinthian, and Attic-Corinthian vases with their 
circular zones, and in archaic buildings (Temple of Assos, 
Treasury of Cnidus, relief on the Harpies Tomb, etc.) up to 
the period of the classical monuments of the second half of 
the 5th century (Panathenaic frieze, friezes in the temple of 
Athena Nike, in the Theseum, at Phigalia, Sunium, etc.). 
On funerary and votive reliefs and in vase-paintings we shall 
remark the increasingly logical, harmonious and well thought 
out principles of composition, and the adaptation of the 
theme to the field to be decorated, whether it be medallion, 
metope, circular zone, or the corresponding sides of a vase; 


fh. Pe 1 (4 
eZ youu) ‘aenaees E25 ileasg Op an o EE 4 oo corte 
ty {1 
/ CESS 1 q asi 
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Fic. 60. THe HARpPIEs TOMB: DETAIL (BRITISH MUSEUM), 
6TH CENTURY. 


and the transformation of the “‘ epic ’’ narrative spirit of the 
6th century into the ‘‘ dramatic’ spirit of the 5th, this last 
proceeding from the same desire for synthesis as inspired 
Attic drama.” 

These analyses are of the greatest use in helping us to 
grasp the essence and aims of Greek art. Whether it is 
a matter of pose, anatomy, drapery or composition, these 
principles all spring from one source, a spirit endeavouring 
to achieve, with a growing exactitude of observation, increas- 
ingly perfect unity and synthesis in which details have their 
logical and at the same time their harmonious place. Those 
purely exterior expedients of former days, which gave to a 
work of art an appearance of unity, are abandoned, and the 


1 LXXVII, p. 47. 2 CXLYV, vol. iii, p. 830. 


260 ART IN GREECE 


old rule of ‘isokephaly,’’? which kept the heads in a relief 
at the same level no matter what their attitude or their 
height (Fig. 60), is no more than a memory, because 1t was not 
truth but an arbitrary procedure, a technical necessity, 
thanks to which the frame dictated the subject. 


1 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 699. 


CHAPTER VI 


DISTANCE AND ATMOSPHERE AS THEY AFFECT 
THE APPEARANCE OF THINGS. CHIAROSCURO, 
MODELLING, PERSPECTIVE! 


Tse authors of modern works of art designed for interior 
decoration need not take into account the effect these will 
produce in the open air, and, only too often, those which are 
seen in the open, on the facades of buildings and in public 
Squares, are defective because their authors failed to allow 
for the repercussions on them of their atmospheric environ- 
ment. There was nothing of this sort in Greece for many a 
long day. Sculpture, if we except cult statues and a few 
reliefs in temple cellas, was meant to be seen in the full 
outdoor light, being set up in sacred enclosures; on tombs and 
on the facades of temples. From this arose certain optical 
necessities which early attracted the artist’s attention. 

If he came gradually to select more and more hard and 
homogeneous material, did not one of the causes lie in his 
desire to make his work last longer, exposed as it was to 
the elements? The Greek climate is clement but does not 
preserve woodwork like that of Egypt, and it must have 
become apparent at an early date that wood was not a suitable 
material for statues and temples. 

Buildings and sculptures were painted. Was not this 
partly in order to preserve this corruptible woodwork, and 
then to tone down the whiteness of stone and emphasize the 
modelling and details which the strong southern light effaced ? 
It is true that the complete polychromy of the earliest times 
later became partial only, when artists realized the beauty of 
marble (6th century), and then it no longer hid the material 
under a coat of badigeon, as had been the case with wood 
and soft stone, but was used sparingly, and ‘“‘ ganosis,’’ the 
light wax polish applied to skin surfaces, was never given up. 
In architecture the purpose of fluting on columns was not 


1 VI, vol. iii, p. 423; OXV ff. 
261 


262 ART IN GREECE 


only to direct the eye upwards and to dissimulate the joins of 
the drums, but to hold shadow in the hollows and to catch the 
light on the ridges; the angular columns are stronger in order 
to avoid seeming slender owing to their isolation; the entire 
peristasis leans inwards, beeause, were the columns of the 
cella strictly straight, the building would look as though 
opening outwards; in the Parthenon the lines of the stylobate 
are not absolutely horizontal, but slightly incurved in order 
to combat the illusion of concavity.1 And there were other 
optical refinements besides. 

The sculptor took into account the position his statues 
would occupy. Destined to be placed high up on a temple 
or on a pedestal, their necessary visual deformations were 
prepared in advance. A characteristic if doubtful anecdote 
tells of a competition between Phidias and his pupil Alca- 
menes: the prize was about to be given to Aleamenes, whose 
statue seemed the more beautiful, whereas that by Phidias 
was not thought much of, because its open lips and its high 
nostrils gave a silly expression to the face; but once the two 
statues were placed in position, it was seen that these deforma- 
tions were deliberate, that the faults disappeared and were 
transformed into beauty. The sculptors of the temple of 
Apheea (Atgina) did their work as though their warriors were 
to remain at eye-level and even as though the spectators’ view 
should dominate the plinth on which they are placed. But as 
early as the 6th century the imperfections of the Sphinx at 
Delphi,” whose head seems too large, must have been greatly 
minimized by its six metres of height on the top of an Ionic 
column. The folds of the dress of a young Amazon on the 
Epidaurus pediment (4th century) seem rather coarse; this is 
because we see them at too close quarters when the sculptors 
were quite justified in securing radiating shadows since the 
statue was to have been seen from below, and far off. Was 
the oncos of the tragic mask a trick of the light, as has some- 
times been thought? Such examples are plentiful. Rodin 
rightly remarked that the ancients avoided dryness and 
succeeded in preventing their statues from having hard out- 
lines against the sky by arbitrarily reinforcing their curves 
and making them more emphatic than in the living model, 
so that the light played better on these broadened surfaces. 

1 LVI. * Bourguet, Les ruines de Delphes, p. 127. 3 VII, p. 38. 


CHIAROSCURO AND PERSPECTIVE 263 


To give, in drawing, volume to a body instead of reducing 
it to a simple linear projection, to note the play of light and 
shade on it, and to render comprehensibly the successive 
planes of the objects from those that are nearest to those that 
are farthest off, and to cause these to melt into the atmosphere 
—these are all problems which to-day seem easy of solution, 
but which the Greeks took a long time to solve. 

The primitive artist makes no pretence of translating the 
illusion of volume and the depth of planes to a plane surface 
as though he were opening a window on to nature. He shows 
objects in their logical, and not in their optical reality—not as 
they seem to be, deformed by their position and by the light. 
““ How many people there are,” said Perrault, ‘‘ who would 
like one to make the distant figures stand out as strongly and 
in as great a detail as those that are in the foreground, so 
that they can be better seen—who would gladly let the painter 
off all his trouble in composing his picture and diminishing 
the figures according to their planes, but especially who would 
like one not to put any shadow in a face, particularly in the 
portraits of those whom they love.”* Such cases are known 
in all periods: a lady reproaches the painter for having 
indicated the shadow cast by her nose, or a Pasha wants the 
scarlet of his fez to be uniformly brilliant. What difficulties 
the impressionists met with before they could get people to 
accept shadows that were violet or green and not black, flesh- 
tints that varied with the lighting! In all lands people are 
very slow in learning to see with the observing eye in drawing 
the play of changing light and distance. 

Beyond the borders of Greece attempts in this direction 
were few and far between, and suffered eventual eclipse. 
There was already a genuine feeling for the modelling of the 
body in the Magdalenians’ paintings, but these were by no 
means the products of an art in its infancy. In Egypt the 
curious attempts at realism in the time of Akhenaton got the 
length of putting the back of figures in shadow, and directing 
a ray of light on the thigh of a young girl. There is a 
Mycenean fresco which sought to render modelling by 
hatching. Occasionally, too, there is a timid attempt at 
perspective in the pottery of Susa, in Egyptian frescoes, and 
Assyrian reliefs. And on a Mycenzan vase showing a stag 

1 VI, vol. iii, pp. 57, 423. 


264 ART IN GREECE 


hunt the painter indicates the leg of the hunter on the animal’s 
body in order to show that it is in a different plane. 

The Greek artist, like all others, began by tracing sil- 
houettes without substance, by avoiding any foreshortening 
and replacing it by naive conventions that are universal, by 
putting things in the same plane and by neglecting all play 
of light and shade. But he was to out-distance his fellow- 
workers in other lands and here, too, to be an innovator. If 
he did not achieve his aim until very late, this was partly, 
perhaps, because Greek art is decorative first and foremost,* 
and because for a long time it would seem strange to him to 
desire volume, depth and light on a plane surface which he 
had to treat as such without attempting to deceive the eye; 
perhaps, too, because he had a preference for colour-drawing 
and purity of line, of which vase-painting provides so many 
fine examples. Is there not a certain analogy here between 
Greek and Japanese art ? 

The severe style red-figure pottery (end of the 6th and 
beginning of the 5th centuries) timidly attempted the study of 
modelling objects, light and shade; the various shades of the 
glaze, running from a deep black to a light yellow, according 
to how much it was diluted, enabled the painter to get 
varying degrees of light and shade for the delineation of 
muscles, hair and drapery. These vase-painters are able to 
express the light playing on the fluting of a column (Brygus) 
and to model the cheek of Troilus or the folds of Demeter’s 
and Hermes’ garments (Cora carried off by Hades, middle 
of the 5th century). There was also another method: a 
number of small hatchings show the convexity of a shield 
(cup by Onesimus). Sotades shades by fine hatchings and 
curves the ovoid tomb of Glaucus and Polyeidus.2 In a 
painting illustrating the myth of Cadmus and the Dragon, 
shading is done by hatchings and by alternating thick and 
fine strokes; the same line, according to whether it begins 
in shadow or passes into full light to re-enter a dark zone, 
is first full, then thin to the point of being scarcely visible. 
On a 450 scyphos from Eleusis, broad clear-cut patches of 
a different colour between fine lines indicate shadows, and 


* CLI, CLIT. 


* Smith, Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the British Museum, 1895, 
p. 391, No. 5. 


CHIAROSCURO AND PERSPECTIVE 265 


the succession of hollows and salients in folds. These essays,' 
isolated among the early masters, become frequent in the 
vases of Polyclitian style in the middle of the 5th century; the 
lecythi with white backgrounds of the end of the 5th cen- 
tury and beginning of the 4th also show modelling by 
means of hatching. The Ficorini cist of the 3rd century is 
a characteristic example of this method. Then the Hellenistic 
vase-painters occasionally seek to render volume and _ its 
nuances by painting certain portions over in rose colour.’ 

The vase-painters also take note of cast shadows. The 
blue-violet mantle of an old man, standing at a deathbed, 
throws a violet shadow on his feet (5th-century white back- 
ground lecythus). On a Nola red-figure vase vertical strokes 
emphasize the contours of the material and indicate the 
shadow cast by the fall of the drapery; on an engraved 
mirror in the British Museum the artist shows by hatching 
the differing light and shade due to the form of objects, their 
planes, and the diminished light falling on one body owing 
to another coming between it and the light. Thus artists 
give up using uniformly monochromatic surfaces from the 
middle of the 5th century; they take pains to render the 
volume of objects, the play of light and shade on them, and 
the shadows they cast with their varying tones. 

Once these ideas had been grasped they became general. 
The Cortona Muse;’ the Greco-Roman paintings* at Delos, 
Herculaneum and Pompeii, with their skilled modelling 
despite their industrial mediocrity, show us how painting 
developed some time later. In certain paintings at Pompeii — 
and in the Fayim, the painters had arrived at breaking the 
line and the continuity of contour by methods resembling 
those of the modern impressionists, tachistes and pointillistes : 
the evolution of antique painting would appear to have 
followed the same road that modern painting has followed 
since medieval days when, starting out from a linear drawing, 
it, likewise, progressively acquired volume, modelling and 
variation of light. Did not Giotto, like the Greek ceramist, 
still consider it unnecessary to represent cast shadows ? 

A related experimental study is that of perspective, the 
visual modification of objects according to the planes they 


1 For these see VI, vol. iii, p. 424. 2 RA, 1918, ii, p. 169. 
3 LXXXIV, vol. ix, p. 206. 4 CXV ff. 


266 ART IN GREECE 


occupy.t It was long unknown in Greece, as elsewhere, and 
Greek artists resorted to conventions universal in art where 
its resources are not known. Figures in different planes are 
superposed, or else their feet are placed on the same lines 
and their size is not reduced by distance; nor do the lines 
yet converge as they are more distant from the spectator. 
Occasionally, even, we get an inverted perspective: frequent 
with children and primitives, this expedient was already 
known to the Paleolithic artists, who, in a group of bulls 
seen in profile, make the second head larger than the first; 
it is also used in Byzantine art and in Western medieval 
art; even Giotto still used it, one of his paintings showing 


Fic. 61. CRATER FROM ORVIETO (PARIS). 


a man, who is coming down a staircase, larger in size than 
the man who is in front of him. In Greece, too, profiles 
override one another, the furthest off being the largest (proto- 
Attic vase), and the warrior in the second plane being made 
larger than the one in the first (black-figure vase). 

But from the 6th century there were naive attempts at 
perspective on Ionian, Corinthian and Attic vases. For 
instance, on an Ionian vase from Eleusis, women are seated 
facing one another: the legs of the chairs rest on the ground 
line, which is wavy, the two not being quite at the same 
height; between them, a man, erect, shown in profile, is at 
a lower level; there is here a curious desire to indicate different 


1 VI, vol. ii, Table, s.v.; vol. iii, pp. 187, 437. 


CHIAROSCURO AND PERSPECTIVE 267 


planes.1 The red-figure vases of the beginning of the 5th 
century multiply these attempts, which come to a head in 
the Polygnotian perspective, with background and figures 
seen in depth masking one another and disposed at varying 
heights (Figs. 61 and 62).2, On a white lecythus a funerary 
monument is seen in perspective in the second plane; else- 
where it may be an altar whose lines vanish; Meidias likes 
figures partly hidden by the ground; they are ranged in two 
or three tiers on the buckler of the Parthenos by Phidias; 
on a mirror in the British Museum, of the beginning of the 
4th century, the engraver indicates the different planes, 
though still with a certain amount of awkwardness, it is 
true.” We even mect with essays at ceiling perspective on 
vases in the Meidian style; there is a basin on which the 


Fic. 62. BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS. ARYBALLUS AT NAPLES. 


throne of Zeus looks as though one saw it from below, as 
if the artist who had copied the Parthenon pediment had 
represented it such as he saw it from below. 

The draughtsman at first achieved perspective with the 
only means at his disposal, foreshortening, diminution in the 
size of objects, and different levels. But once he was equipped 
with the knowledge of modelling and chiaroscuro he was able 
to add to these linear means the resources of aerial perspective 
and the modifications in light and colour brought about in 
objects by distance. 

Greek artists formulated these principles. In the second 
half of the 5th century, Agatharchus of Samos* developed 
the art of optical illusion when he painted the earliest theatre 

1 CXLV, vol. ii, 455-56, 569. 2 Tbid., iii, p. 1052. © 
3 CRAI, 1905, p. 187; BCH, 1899, p. 325; Congrés d’ Athénes, 1905, 


p. 180; CXLYV, vol. iii, p. 1099; JHS, 1907, p. 4. 
4 CXXIV; Six, ‘‘ Agatharchus,’”’ JHS, 1920, p. 180. 


268 ART IN GREECE 


décors at Athens; he is said to have invented the perspective 
due to the play of light and shade and a special contrast 
in colours. Then came Apollodorus the skiagrapher, who, 
says Plutarch, “ proceeded by diminishing and attenuating 
his tones.” The word “ skiagraphy ” really designates the 
art of perspective and not that of shadow and modelling, 
but these problems are all closely related because the prin- 
cipal means of achieving perspective in several planes is the 
employment of diminishing shades. 

Relief profited by these pictorial gains in the 4th century, 
and more especially in Hellenistic times. The sculptor, who 
could also utilize the differing salients of the stone, gives 
depth and distance and develops the experiment already 
timidly sketched out by Phidias in the Panathenaie frieze 
(examples: sarcophagus of Alexander,! Tralles relief,? in the 
Constantinople museum, etc.). But the final solution of the 
spatial problem in sculpture is furnished by Augustinian art 
and its “illusionist ’’ style. On the silver vases of the 
treasure of Boscoreale, the relief passes from the almost 
round to the simple silhouette sketched on the background, 
the figures are grouped in depth, and the modelling seeks to 
render the effects of light and shade.? 

Yet, very soon afterwards, Roman art abandoned these 
conquests which had been so patiently won; it went back, 
in the triumphal arch of Claudius, the Antonine and Trajan 
columns, and on tombs, to the old method of figures super- 
posed in height. At that time the method may have been 
deliberate, but soon it became unconscious again, in measure 
as art went downhill to its decadence and forgot, in its growing 
lack of technical skill, the way by which it had climbed to 
its fullest expression. : 

Sculpture, in the course of time, had acquired volume and 
substance. In the archaic work of the 7th and 6th centuries, 
details, such as drapery folds, facial features, and muscles, 
were incised rather than modelled, sculptors merely scratching 
the surface of their marble. The eyes were goggling and 
ready to jump out of their sockets, and the brows did not 
overhang to protect them. Gradually details penetrated right 


1 LXITI, vol. ii, p. 404. 


2 RA, 1908, ii, p. 397; 1906, vii, 225; 1908, xi, p. 9; BCH, 1908, 
p. 526. 
3 Strong, Roman Sculpture, 1907. 


PLATE X 


HEAD OF THE OLYMPIA HERMES BY PRAXITELES 


[ face p. 268 


CHIAROSCURO AND PERSPECTIVE 269 


into the stone; they were not merely drawn on the surface, 
but modelled with their proper depth and thickness. Thus 
in Antenor’s Kore’ (about 510), and then in that of Euthy- 
dicus,” and in the head of the ‘“‘ Blond Ephebus”’ of the 
Acropolis (before 480),° the eyes retire beneath the brows, 
and the lids are no longer stuck on the eyeballs like bits of 
paper, but stand out from them; the folds of the garment 
acquire depth and are no longer flattened on the body. The 
progress made in this direction was regular and rapid, and 
concerned every part of the whole. 

Relief began by being very flat, a simple silhouette with 
sharp contours, sometimes obtained by the same expedient 
of a cast shadow as was used in contemporaneous vase 
painting (relief of the Dioscuri, at Sparta;* Naucratis relief).° 

Statues were often very flat, like boards (Nicandra of 
Delos, the Auxerre statuette); conceived to be seen frontally, 
they lacked depth and substance. A few works, in which 
the body is a regular cylinder (Samos Hera),° do, however, 
already reveal the desire to render volume. We cannot 
recognize in this appearance the hypothetical influence of 
wood-carving on a squared or rounded log; rather are these 
the instinctive necessary forms that are the same for all art 
in its beginnings. The 5th century preserves the memory 
of them. Seen in profile, the Diskobolos of Myron still lacks 
substance. But directly the frontality convention was broken 
with, the artist began to treat the sides and reverse of his 
statues with the attention he at first gave exclusively to the 
front, and the statue then gets its correct volume,’ and we 
can look at it from all sides. The group, as we have seen, 
did not make this conquest, achieved by isolated statues in 
the 5th century, until the 4th.° 

In archaic work the various planes join up in sharp angles 
or ridges, the transition between them being faulty; there 
is none of that modelling which, said Rodin, is ‘“‘a caress 
for the eyes.”’ These sculptures look as though they had 
been hacked out in wood with an axe and worked over with 
a carpenter’s gouge. An ingenious theory recognizes in this 

1 LXXVIII, p. 245. 2 Ibid., p. 858. 3 Ibid., p. 362. 

4 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 4 

5 Annual of the British School at Athens, v, Pl. ix; VI, vol. ii, p. 304. 


6 LXXXIV, vol. viii, p. 146. 
7 CLXXVII. 8 See above, p. 250. 


270 ART IN GREECE 


appearance the influence of a wood technique on works in 
soft stone and marble. In reality it is a question of a general 
expedient, independent of the material employed and neces- 
sitated by lack of technical experience, just as lack of sub- 
stance arises out of the frontal conception. The 5th century 
softened these angles and asperities: the sides of the statue 
no longer join in a right angle like the faces of a quarried 
block, but increasingly subtle transitions are sought. Never- 
theless, something still persists, now and again, of this earlier 
harshness, even up to the time of Polyclitus’ work. 

Statuary early borrowed from painting its attitudes and 
motifs. In the second half of the 5th century it went further 
and began to treat stone by pictorial methods, by carving 
the drapery of its figures, and by giving a softer modelling 
to its heads, of which the pediments and the frieze of the 
Parthenon afford numerous examples. None the less, sil- 
houettes are still sharp in the 5th century, and planes are 
precise, even somewhat dry, especially in the Argive art of 
Polyclitus and his disciples. What the great masters of the 
4th century, Praxiteles, Scopas, and Lysippus! did was to 
make the light and shade play softly on the surfaces and in 
the hollows of the marble, as Phidias—without rival as a 
marble-worker—had already tried to do, and to treat stone 
in the fashion of a painter, transposing pictorial modelling 
into plastic art, and giving to this art new resources which 
had been opened up to it by the chiaroscuro experimented 
in by Apollodorus, Zeuxis and Parrhasius. Henceforth 
contours that are too clear-cut are repudiated, and soft 
transitions are favoured, and great pains are taken to get the 
statues bathed in the atmosphere. These were the qualities 
the ancients admired in the Cnidian with her “ humid and 
brilliant look” (Lucian), and that we still recognize when 
we speak of the Praxitelian charm and morbidezza. The 
hair of the Olympian Hermes (Plate X) contrasts its mass 
of wayward locks with the polished surface of the flesh; the 
transition between the almost effaced lower lid to the plane 
of the cheek is extraordinarily delicate; the contours lose 
their precision in a modelling that is light as air and insub- 
stantial as mist. It was this pictorial conception of marble 
that the ancients doubtless had in view when they attributed 

1 See above, p. 217; VI, vol. iii, p. 423. 


PLATE XI 


APHRODITE AND ADONIS GROUP. (Sofia Museum), 


Flellenistic Praxitelian 


[ face p. 270 


\ 


CHIAROSCURO AND PERSPECTIVE 271 


2 


to Lysippus these words: “‘ Hitherto men had been repre- 
sented as they are, but he shows them to us as they seem 
to be,’ that is to say, no longer in the precision of attitude 
and anatomy alone, but as these are modified by the effects 
of lighting. 

What a difference there is between the head known as the 
Eubouleus (National Museum, Athens),' sometimes attributed 
to Praxiteles himself, but more probably by one of his 
disciples, and the head of the Doryphoros, even with a 
Phidian head already influenced by painting; between these 
and the other, statuary had evolved in the direction of an 
altogether pictorial modelling that certain Hellenistic sculptors 
were to exaggerate, especially those who carried on the 
Praxitelian tradition (Plate XI); thanks to their sfumato, 
their veritable transposition of chiaroscuro into the round, 
they seem almost to have been painted by some Leonardo 
da Vinci, or some ancient Prud’hon (heads of the Leconsfield, 
Aphrodite? and Meleager,” etc.). 

The Hellenists also applied to plastic art the principles 
of perspective, and by disposing their figures in several 
planes, and ranging them at different levels, they sought 
to bring new life into the old methods of composition: that 
kind of group known as the “ picturesque ”’ is one of the 
most daring innovations of Hellenistic art (Farnese Bull, 
etc.).4 The moment had come in which the various genres 
run into one another, in which literature itself becomes the 
rival of painting and plastic. 


1 CLIX, p. 93. 2 LXX, Pl. xvii, p. 344. 3 Ibid., Pl. xv. 
4 LXII, vol. ii, p. 535. 5 VI, vol. iii, p. 426 ff. 


PART FOUR 
THE IDEAL AND ITS EVOLUTION 


Tuus far this book has shown what the Greek artist tried 
to do and what technical means he had at his disposal for 
achieving his aims. As we went along we made a note of 
the general principles guiding him in his effort and which 
give a particular character to the Greek artistic ideal. In 
the following pages we shall indicate just in what that ideal 
consisted, and mark the chronological stages of its evolution. 


273 18 


CHAPTER I 
SOME ASPECTS OF THE GREEK IDEAL 


** By man are all things measured ” (Protagoras). Ancient 
and modern peoples, young and old, see in natural phenomena 
themselves, dress these in their own form, and dower them 
with their own thoughts. Perhaps this instinctive anthropo- 
morphism’ was stronger in the Greeks than in any other 
peoples, or at all events they transformed it into a conscious 
principle of their spiritual and emotive life, and it made an 
indelible impress on their civilization. 

The AXgeans had not yet precisely figured to themselves 
the appearance of their gods. For them the supernatural 
powers dwelt in stones, trees, plants, animals, and stars as 
much as in the human form; these had no need of a temple 
resembling the house of a mortal man, for their cult was 
rendered to them in enclosures in the open, and in chapels 
attached to the royal palaces. Agean artists regarded 
nature—the fauna and flora—with curious eyes; they repre- 
sented with great truth the energy of a galloping bull or 
the maternal affection of a wild goat suckling its kids; they 
adorned their vases with crocus, lily, seaweed, shells, and 
cuttlefish. No doubt they took an interest in the body of 
man, which they admired in its slender silhouette, muscular 
power, and energetic action (Knossos acrobat, Boxers vase 
from Haghia Triada), but they did not pay him their exclusive 
attention. They had a wide and sincere comprehension of 
nature, and it is this that gives to their art, sometimes so 
modern in its style, its great attraction.” 

The Hellenes brought in quite another spirit. Everything 
converges on man who is their one and only interest, and 
who was thenceforth to exercise a despotic sway over thought 
and over art. It was a fruitful despotism because it obliged 


1 TX, p. 137. 
2 CCII; VI, vol. iii, p. 59; Glotz, The Mgean Civilization, 1923 
(Eng). trans., 1925). 
275 


276 ART IN GREECE 


them to study more closely this man, hitherto confounded 
with nature and now set up alone on his pedestal, and to 
know him perfectly in his physical and psychological form, 
in his social relations and his reactions on the world around 
him. But anthropomorphism limited the view of the Greeks 
and turned them away for many a long day from those other 
aspects of inanimate and animate nature which they only 
sought after having achieved perfect knowledge of man. 

All gods now were men, doubtless bigger and more 
powerful, more beautiful than ordinary mortals, yet clothed 
in human form and acting and thinking like men, and, from 
Homer’s time, subject to the terrestrial passions of joy and 
pain. This, for the artist, was a great advantage. The 
world of the gods was not for him an unknown and mysterious 
land to which he could penetrate only by a great imaginative 
effort and which would drive him to create strange beings; 
he daily saw this world all about him. The gods were men 
who bore divine appellations. Mythology, which told of their 
adventures, was but a projection into the celestial sphere 
of human exploits. Myth and reality, the divine and the 
earthly, are all one in the mind of the painter, the architect, 3 
and the sculptor. 

Indeterminateness of type is common to all art in its 
infancy. But in Greece it was confirmed by the dominant 
anthropomorphism. In the archaic period it is impossible 
at first sight to distinguish between a god and a mortal, and 
the 6th-century Kouros serves equally well for an Apollo 
or one of the Dioscuri as for a commemorative image of the 
dead or the ex voto of one of the faithful; the Kore serves 
as well for Artemis or Aphrodite as for a priestess or an 
image of the faithful or of the dead. There is the same 
difficulty in the art of the 5th century when it had arrived 
at its maturity. Confronted with a statue, one often hesi- 
tates to say whether it is that of god or mortal: is the Dory- 
phoros of Polyclitus an ephebus who is a victor in the games, 
a hero such as Achilles, or a funerary image? And is the 
Vaison Diadumenos an athlete or an Apollo ? 

Once art has become humanized (from the 4th century), 
with what facility the gods descend from heaven to earth to 
take part in the humblest occupations of daily life! Aphro- 

1 See above, p. 180. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 277 


dite is just a woman, bathing, arching her back beneath the 
stream of water that Eros pours over her, or loosing her 
sandal; or, surprised by Pan, defending herself from his 
attack (Delos group); Apollo is merely a youth tormenting 
a lizard. 

And with what facility, likewise, man becomes a god, 
represented with the features of a Hermes or an Apollo, 
whose attributes he assumes !+ 

Divine exploits are with little trouble identified with 
those of the Greeks themselves, and the symbol is a veil for 
reality. The gods who struggle against the giants, Heracles 
and Theseus, accomplishing their exploits, in subjects that art 
never tires of repeating and with which the walls of temples 
and the sides of vases are covered, are, as we saw farther 
back,” the Greeks who were victorious over their enemies 
and especially over the Persian. Projected into heaven by 
anthropomorphic ideas these adventures come back to the 
earth whence they were inspired. 

The god who is assimilated to the most powerful of 
mortal men can no longer be contented with his former 
holy places. He requires a fine dwelling for himself alone, 
a chief’s residence, and not a mere palace annexe. Thus 
came into being the Greek temple which is not the place 
of assembly of the faithful but the private mansion of the 
god. Thus it is quite natural that this temple should carry 
on the form of a king’s palace—of the Mycenzan megaron. 
Anthropomorphism rendered this substitution necessary, and 
excavation has shown, at Mycene, at Tiryns, at Troy, and 
on the Acropolis in Athens, that the archaic temple was 
raised on the very site of the Mycenean palace.° 

The god, in his corporeal semblance, mingles with men, 
held within his stone or metal effigy by the magic virtue of 
art, by the power of rite and sacrifice. He is there in the 
house, in the cella of the temple; he is everywhere that his 
protection is needed, in the sacred enclosure, in the public 
square, in the dwelling-house and on the tomb. 

In his temple he must be entertained as a man, fed by 
means of sacrifices, clothed and provided with furniture 
through offerings. We can see in his temple, stored among 
the age-old ex votos, everything that industry created to 


1 LXIII, p. 315. 2 Cf. p. 57. 3 Cf. p. 142. 


278 ART IN GREECE 


help mortals maintain life—cauldrons, tripods, seats, beds, 
and arms. Religion, which accepted indifferently as a gift 
a statue or a roasting-spit, thus usefully maintained in being 
the union of industrial with Fine Arts.? The ‘‘ Treasuries,”’ 
small sacred buildings built round the temple or the dwelling 
of the cult statue, were the store-houses of the god. The 
Parthenon is nothing but a magnificent treasury (the venerated 
Xoanon, doubtless restored just after the Persian invasion, 
being in the cella of the Athena Polias), where was heaped 
up the riches belonging to Athena, the gold and ivory of her 
chryselephantine statue—as much a monetary reserve for 
the city as a work of art—the golden crowns offered to the 
goddess as prizes for valiance in the battle of the giants, 
superb couches, and the throne of Xerxes.° 

Certain themes of religious art throw light on this essen- 
tially human character of the gods. How often they are 
represented at their toilet, and without fear of compromising 
their dignity ! Aphrodite puts on a necklet (frieze of the 
Treasury of Cnidus; Pseliumene of Praxiteles); nude, she 
twists up her damp tresses; or Artemis fastens her mantle 
on her shoulder (the Artemis of Gabii). They all gladly 
accept gifts of homage in the shape of garments or ornaments 
to place on their statuary bodies, and, over the entrance of 
the Parthenon, at the place where the great Panathenaic 
procession converges, Athena receives from the hands of the 
chief priest the peplos that the Ergastike have woven and 
embroidered. 

The animal, plant and aniconic forms of former days 
disappear; they persist only in certain cults as survivals of 
an outworn stage in so far as they have become the attributes 
of a god now human (the owl of Athena, the lizard of Apollo, 
the boar of Demeter), or in strange monstrous combinations 
in legends and metamorphoses. And these monstrosities, that 
unite in some form or another the body of a man with that 
of a beast, become more and more rare, eliminated by esthetic 
feeling. They shock, not only because they are unreal and 
improbable but because they impair the dignity of the human 
body, the most beautiful gift that can be offered to the gods. 
The strange fauna of Aijgean art, in which men with stag’s 
heads, and human bees, abound, and then the fantastic 


1 CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘‘ Donarium.”’ 2 Cf. p. 45. 3 XXXIX. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 279 


conceptions imported into Greece after the Dorian invasion 
by Oriental influence, such as the hare-headed man and the 
hippalectryon, gradually die out; a few alone survive: those 
to which the popular mind had become accustomed, a few 
mythical beings necessary because of the significance attached 
to them—Syrens, Centaurs, Sphinxes, Satyrs, Sileni, and 
Pan—but which the artist sought to render less bestial. 
The Sileni, Satyrs and Pan had their ugly faces ennobled 
and their animal origin was almost forgotten; the Gorgon’s 
hideous mask was refined into the Rondanini Medusa (5th 
century). One very rarely sees, in Greece, supernatural 
beings represented with a multiplicity of limbs (arms and 
legs) with a view of emphasizing by such redundancy their 
infinite strength'—Argus with his hundred eyes, sometimes 
double-headed, and the two-headed Boreas are exceptions— 
or with an elongated head like the Chinese sage’s dispropor- 
tionate cranium. Any tampering with the human form, such 
as its union with that of a beast, was a blemish which was not 
lightly to be inflicted on its sovereign majesty. 

All that concerned the gods was kept within due propor- 
tion. The Greek did not imagine, as was done in the Indian 
religions, fantastic and mountainous creations. Dimensions 
had to be kept within the scale of a superior humanity; the 
colossal statues and temples of Greece are actually small by 
comparison with those of Egypt, Mesopotamia or the Far 
East.” 

Man, and not the gods alone, felt the influence of this 
anthropomorphic conception. This conception concentrated 
the Greek’s attention on the human body, so that he offered 
this body in homage to, and organized for, the divinity, 
games in which athletes competed together, and set up in 
the sanctuaries the effigies of adorers and of victors who gave 
themselves to the god, at the same time ensuring for them- 
selves that god’s protection. It educated the eye of every 
man, whether artist or no, and it awakened pleasure in the 
sight of this body, nude or clothed, in its various attitudes 
whether in repose or in action. It inspired the artist in his 
plastic efforts and stimulated in him an esthetic appreciation 


1 Deonna, ‘* Essai sur la genése des monstres dans l’art,’? REG, 


1915, p. 288. 
2 Cf. p. 64. 


280 ART IN GREECE 


that has never been equalled in other nations. The technical 
progress we have already examined in pose, rhythm, anatomy, 
drapery, action, and the rendering of volume, was accom- 
plished thanks to this human body being taken for subject, 
and was all so much profit reaped by art that was directly 
due to anthropomorphism. 


But what place does the Greek give to the other phases 
of the world of nature ? Animals* rarely interest the artist 
in themselves, for the pleasure of rendering their form and 
their movements. Archaic art left behind it some animal 
images of a sober naturalism (the Acropolis greyhound, 6th 
century), and the ancients praise Myron’s talent for rendering 
animals, his cow, in particular, being so life-like that it 
deceived even bulls and shepherds. However, it was a long 
time—not till Hellenistic times—before animals were treated 
for themselves and became of as great artistic interest as 
man. Hitherto they had played but the secondary role of 
an attribute or servant of the god whose earliest form they 
_ often recalled, to whom their effigy was offered as an ex voto 
because it took the place of a live victim and kept the offering 
in continual memory; they figured as necessary accessories 
in the sacred combats of Heracles and Theseus. They also 
served man, drawing his chariot, accompanying him on 
funerary stele, and they glorified him. They exist only as 
a function of this divine or mortal man. In the 6th century 
the Attic horses (Acropolis statues, funerary reliefs) signify 
that the dedicator or the dead belonged to the Athenian 
hippeis class; in the 5th century, in the Olympian pediments, 
they draw the chariots of Ginomaus and Pelops, and in 
those of the Parthenon, the chariots of Helios and Selene, 
Zeus and Athena. The dog appears frequently on funerary 
stele with his master, and the hare is the favourite animal 
of the ephebi. Animals are also symbolical. The lion, that 
the Greeks had never seen but whose image had been in- 
herited from the Afgeans and the Orientals, signified strength 
and courage; he guards the approach to temples (archaic lions 
at Delos, 6th century), and he protects the tomb.” The 
bull, emblem of valiance, is still set up on a tomb in the 


1 YI, vol. iii, p. 80. 2 LXIII, p. 226. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 281 


Keramikos. But does this réle not confirm the subjection 
of the animal to man and to the thought of man ? 


* * * ok k 


Flowers and scenery very nearly vanished from art when 
the Dorian invasion took place; the earliest Hellenic works, 
the vase-paintings of the Attic Dipylon, bear witness to this. 
Formerly, Cretans and Mycenzeans covered their vases with 
flowers and foliage and seaweed. Now there were human 
scenes, funerals of the Eupatrids, or a network of geometrical 
lines. When a floral motif does appear on a vessel it is 
unrecognizable, its detached leaves are stylized and stiff. 
One feels that the artist saw in it nothing but a decorative 
element of sorts. If some vestige of a love for nature persists 
—but how attenuated !—in Ionian ceramics, which occasion- 
ally treats with truth buds and flowers and leaves, and which 
places divine and human action in a picturesque frame, it is 
because the Ionians have inherited something of the Augean 
naturalism.” But in continental Greece the new ideal brought 
in by the Dorian invaders, characterized by its anthropo- 
morphic spirit and its geometrical conceptions, eliminated 
nature. The artist, under the predominant Oriental influence 
of the 8th to 7th centuries, employed a number of floral— 
palmette and lotus—motifs, but they were transmitted to 
him already denatured and schematized by the art objects 
brought in by commerce and from which he copied them. 

And, in painting, even these accessories were gradually 
driven from the field, which was left entirely to man. 
Mythological and human scenes took up all the space and 
there remained but a few palmettes, a traditional element 
in Greek design. In the Attic black-figure, and then in the 
red-figure vases, man stands out on a blank ground. At the 
most a tree, stark as a broomstick, indicates that the scene 
takes place in the open air. How characteristic is this 
charming painting, for instance, on a red-figure vase:° a 
bearded man, an ephebus and a small boy are watching a 
swallow’s flight. ‘‘ Look!” says one of them, “‘ a swallow !”’ 
“Yes, by Zeus! it is,” says the other, and the third con- 
cludes: ‘* It is the spring.”’ Is not this a triumph in the way 


1 VI, vol. iii, Table, s.v. ‘‘ Nature.” 2 See above, p. 185. 
3 Monumenti dell’ Instituto, ii, Pl. xxiv; JOAI, 1913. Petrograd, 
The Hermitage. 


282 ART IN GREECE 


of evoking the season of rebirth with no other means than 
human figures? The three personages in the little scene 
stand out, as a fact, on a plain ground which is broken by 
nothing save the flying swallow; it could not be done without, 
because it was necessary to the understanding of the subject, 
but there is not a single flower or a blade of grass. 

Nature, like animals, only comes in as a function of man, 
If we find in vase-paintings olive trees, vines, and water with 
fishes, it is only because a real or a mythical man is gathering 
in the olive or grape harvest, is fishing, or has an escort of 
dolphins. Does not Socrates claim that scenery can teach 
him nothing that he does not already know from the unique 
study of self? This human conception lasts throughout 
Greek art. Hellenistic realism covers the background of 
paintings and reliefs with trees and views of nature. Scenery 
makes its appearance in art, but it is never more than a 
setting for human occupations. Nature alone and undis- 
turbed by the presence or the toil of man is unknown in 
Greek art, and even modern art only arrived at this con- 
ception tardily. In fact, esthetic feeling turns last of all to 
appreciate the beauties of nature; man begins by interesting 
himself in that which touches him nearest, that is to say 
in himself, and in nature in so far as it is useful to him, 
and he does not go back to virgin nature until he has tired 
of himself and of the civilization that weighs too heavily 
upon him. 

And Nature herself becomes anthropomorphized. The 
poet beside the Hellenic sea, whose every clear-cut wave- 
crest sparkles in the sun, sings of their laughter. He dreams 
of the adventures of Dionysus and of the Tyrrhenian pirates, 
and he seems to see the flower-decked vessel of the god with 
its escorting dolphins. Mountain and plain and stream 
evoke the vision of mythic beings peopling them throughout 
the centuries. He hears the sound of Pan’s hoofs, the wildly 
dancing feet of the Menads, and in some hollow tree he 
spies Dryads and Hamadryads; a Nymph appears to him 
in the depths of a spring, and his rivers, dry for a part of the 
year, and impetuous, destroying torrents for the rest of it, 
are for him bulls and galloping horses whose forms are half 
animal and half human. Even the creations of man’s handi- 
work, the houses and cities, have countenances: the city 


THE GREEK [DEAL 283 


becomes an amply draped woman, seated, and wearing on her 
head a turreted crown Sea of Antioch,! by Eutychides, 
3rd century). 

Nothing can escape this Besdon: Justice and Injustice, 
Peace, Victory, Tragedy, Comedy, all appear to the artist in 
human guise. Nor are these abstractions banal and cold as 
in modern art, in which they are no longer the direct trans- 
position of an idea into a living body but an age-old worn- 
out tradition. In Greece, where they were realized for the 
first time, they had freshness and sincerity. The dominant 
thing about them was not so much their attributes, or the 
idea of them, as their corporeal beauty. Confronted by the 
numerous Nikes who commemorate so many Hellenic victories, 
we forget that they symbolize the abstract notion of victory. 
For us, as for the Greeks who contemplated them, they are 
supple feminine bodies with floating draperies and rustling 
wings who have fluttered to earth, as did the Nike of Pzonius 
of Mende at Olympia (after 425). That which charms us in 
the Cephisodotus group is the sentiment of mother-love 
bending the gentle head of Eirene, Peace, over Plutus, 
Wealth.” And it is only afterwards that we think of the 
real meaning of these themes: the abstraction vanishes in 
this plastic beauty. 

This exaltation of the human body inspires a fervent love 
of life. The Greeks, like other men, knew the sorrows of 
terrestrial existence with its suffering and its injustice, and 
experienced the bitterness of death and the fear of the un- 
known beyond, and literature from the outset echoes these 
universal lamentations. But life for them was never a 
meditation on death. They did not, as the Egyptians did, 
trouble to prepare their eternal abode, nor, like the Chinese, 
to ensure for themselves a fine coffin; they did not, like the 
Christians, think of this life as a sad progress towards a 
better world. For the Greeks it seemed better to be the 
least among the living than the first among the dead. 


*k *k * CS oh 
Their art is the glorification of the healthy vigorous human 


body. They will have nothing to say to anything that 
impairs it or foreshadows its decline—such as physical or 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 486. 2 Ibid., vol. ii, p.181. 


284 ART IN GREECE 


mental infirmities, the decrepitude of age, ugliness or disease. 
Myth sometimes required such blemishes (the limping 
Hephestus), and vase-painting, always closest to reality, 
reproduces them; but high art will have none of them until 
the time when it turned resolutely to realism, from the 4th 
century, and particularly in Hellenistic times. 

The latter end of this corporeal decline, death,* has neither 
sadness nor zesthetic ugliness. Nevertheless it is everywhere 
present to the mind of the artist in the images of the necro- 
poles and in the pediments and metopes of temples, where 
it lays warriors low. But the wounded and dying sink 
gently; their countenance is never anguished: it is even 
smiling in the archaic work of the 6th century, and it is calm 
in the idealism of the 5th. The pain of the Rome Niobid* 
is still full of restraint. On the funerary stele the dead 
is not rigid and corpse-like, but living. Erect, he still goes 
about his daily avocations, plays with his dog, looks at the 
jewels never again to be worn, or his relatives tenderly clasp 
him by the hand. There is no brutal separation between the 
dead and the living. There are no vain regrets. The dead 
do not appear to regret life, or at least betray it only by a 
few discreet gestures of sadness (statue of Penelope, Vatican, 
5th century’); the pose is calm, the countenance serene. 
Relatives do not perpetuate about the tomb, through the 
agency of art, the lamentations with which they may have 
accompanied the corpse. The weepers who tear their hair 
on the Dipylon vases become rare, and their bemoaning rdle 
is given over to inferior beings who have more liberty in the 
expression of their feelings, to disconsolate servants at the 
feet of their master, on the stele, or to symbolic Syrens set 
up on the tomb.* With the humanizing of art which came 
about at the beginning of the 4th century a certain thought- 
fulness and melancholy may pass like a gentle shadow across 
the countenance, and sorrowing gestures on stele become 
more frequent. On the Ilissus stele of the Athens Museum 
(4th century)’ the hound seems still to scent his master, and 
the little crouching slave sleeps or weeps; but the dead, a 
fine and strong young man, is no way moved by this reminder 
of his former life: his arms folded in thought, his gaze 


1 OXCVII. | 2 REG, 1908, p. 350; REA, 1910, p. 825. 
3 LXII, vol.i,p.407. 4 LXIII, pp. 76,198. © Ibid., p. 149. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 285 


bent on the far distance, he no longer even sees his father, 
who contemplates him with resigned grief. 

This limit is never overstepped. The sad moment in 
which the soul quits the lifeless body is resolutely suppressed 
in Greek art; there are in funerary inconography only a very 
few exceptions to this rule (stele of young women who die 
in childbirth). The ‘‘ recumbent ”’ figure, stiff on its tomb, is 
not a Greek conception, and it was Egypt, Carthage, and 
Etruria that supplied its prototypes to the Christian medieval 
age. The dead is not even “ sleeping,” as in Etruria and in 
Romanesque art; if he reclines, it is on the couch of the 
funerary banquet whence he can see his wife seated near 
him and his servant who brings in the funeral meats.! 

Thus even in funerary art it is still life that is exalted. 
The dead is depicted as he was upon earth, or such as he is 
in the Beyond, not such as he is when death has transformed 
him. MHeroized, he lives among the blest, he is enthroned 
in dignity and receives homage from those near and dear to 
him (6th century Chrysapha relief, Harpy reliefs);” he has the 
features and the attributes of the chthonian deities, Hermes, 
Demeter, Cora, and Dionysus, to whom he is assimilated.* 
He is now a god, but pre-eminently he affords the artist an 
opportunity for modelling a handsome living body. 

The damned are doomed to hard penances in Tartarus; 
Ixion must ceaselessly turn his flaming wheel, the Danaids 
must endeavour to fill their bottomless vessel, and Sisyphus 
pushes in vain his rock to the top of the mountain. But 
we do not find in Greek art the scenes of terror and cruelty 
that the Etruscans imagined—those hideous demons with 
the hooked beaks of birds of prey, greedy for the blood of 
their victims, which they transmitted to Christian 
imaginations.‘ 

The personification of Death itself is not at all terrible, 
but keeps the aspect of life, resembling Sleep, and on the 
white Attic lecythi Thanatus helps his brother Hypnus to 
dispose the dead in the tomb. There is nothing formidable 
about him; he is a handsome ephebus on the chiselled column 


1 LXITI, pp. 347, 360, 372. 

2 LXXXIV, vol. viii, pp. 331, 439. 3 LXIII, pp. 267, 315. 

4 Weege, Htruskische Maleret, 1921; Poulsen, Htruscan Tomb Paint- 
ings, 1922. 


~~ 


286 ART IN GREECE 


of the temple at Ephesus (4th century);* at the very most, 
on the lecythi, he is somewhat sombre in aspect, with hair 
a little unkempt and muscles that are rather coarse. Charon 
scolds the souls who linger on the gloomy bank; he insists 
on his obolus for their passage, but although he is the surly 
ferryman he in no wise resembles the horrible monsters armed 
with instruments of torture who await the dead in the 
Etruscan hell. 

The image of a skeleton finds no favour with the Greeks,” 
and its late appearance in Greco-Roman art denotes that 
the real Hellenic thought has suffered a change. And 
this skeleton is never that of the dead; the Greek never 
placed on the tomb this derisory image of the human body, 
nor did he ever show it, as it appears in Christian art, as a 
corpse half devoured by worms and oozing corruption. The 
skeleton-dead does not seek to freeze the blood of men with 
terror by unexpectedly appearing among them at their daily 
occupations or at feasts which it delights to disturb like 
some old ogress. In antique art the skeleton frisks joyously 
on the festooned vases, or on graven stones shows its stark 
head which is being contemplated gravely by some philo- 
sopher, or on which the butterfly of the soul alights, This 
is not a terrifying object, but a mere discreet reminder of 
the ephemeral nature of all existence, the expression of a 
natural antithesis between the joys of living and the sadness 
of death, but with nothing sinister or distressful about it. 


* * * * * 


Loving life and striving after truth the Greek artist saw 
things quite simply, just as they are, with no make-believe 
and without establishing hierarchic distinctions between 
them. Realism properly so-called, that is to say the keen, 
precise representation of the accidental and the momentary, 
whether it be feelings, age, or individual features, is doubtless 
late in coming in Greek art, but the themes of this art, even 
when treated with the idealism of the 5th century, are always 
borrowed from the real, often of the simplest and most 
humdrum variety. A young lad extracts a thorn that has 
run into his foot while he was running in the stadium—and 
we have the statue of the Capitol and its numberless replicas 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 398. : 2 CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘* Larvae.”’ 


THE GREEK IDEAL 287 


up to quite Jate times. Another youngster, squatting, plays 
with his toes as he watches the preparations for the race 
between Ginomaus and Pelops—and is one of the figures on 
the east pediment at Olympia. Heracles, armed with a 
broom, vigorously sweeps away the manure in the Augean 
stables in the presence of a haughty Athena—this is one 
of the subjects in an Olympian metope. An ephebus slips 
on his chiton, and another is having his girdle fastened by 
a small serving lad; an impatient horse whisks away the 
flies—all these are motifs included in the Panathenaic frieze. | 
Vase-painting, which has even greater liberty, does not shrink 
from trivial scenes: men vomit as they come from a banquet 
where they have feasted too well; ephebi embrace courtesans, 
and the most intimate subjects are displayed openly. The 
action may be banal and humble, even coarse—little the 
artist cares so long as it is human and true to life, and affords 
him a pretext for exalting, by the magic of his art, the body’s 
beauty; nothing living is noble or ignoble when art trans- 
figures it. 

It is this sense of the real that permits the Greek artist 
to go further than his colleagues of other lands along the 
road of progress. Keenly observing life without prejudice, 
and directly his hand had got sufficient cunning—about 500— 
he realized that the conventions to which he had tamely 
submitted in the 6th century were arbitrary, and he trium- 
phantly tore away the veil that divided him from truth. 


* % ok a * 


The Greek artist, in consequence, is positive. His imagi- 
nation does not wander away in reverie to the domain of 
chimera and fantasy but is always held in check by reality; 
it does not create the visionary worlds of Indian imagining, 
nor people its mythology with strange phantoms, but makes 
it a counterpart of terrestrial life. 

‘In the beautiful as the Greek saw it there is neither 
dream nor fantasy nor mystery, not so much as a grain of 
opium, so intoxicating, so full of hallucination, and so curiously 
enigmatic for the beholder’’ (Goncourt). To refuse the 
slightest sense of mystery to the Greeks, as has so often been 
done, is somewhat excessive, but assuredly theirs was a 
spirit that loved daylighnt—that must have precision and 


288 ART IN GREECE 


clarity of idea in everything. All must be clear-cut, like the 
lines of a landscape in the bright Hellenic sunlight. Dim 
and hazy horizons, half-tones, all that is indefinite or holds 
a doubt, things vague, and indecision of soul, are unknown 
to that spirit, or at least have small attraction for it. The 
temple, precise and luminous, with its human decoration, 
does not stimulate the faithful to mystic reverie or intro- 
spection as do the half-lights and the architectural confusion 
of Gothic cathedrals and Oriental sanctuaries. 

Kiverything is clear-cut, limited, finished. The temple 
is not a complex whole, like the Egyptian or Mesopotamian 
temple, or the Cretan palace, whose maze of courts and stair- 
ways and whose many halls, added one to another without 
upsetting the loose arrangement of the building, inspired in 
the Greeks the legend of the Labyrinth at Knossos. It had, 
in the Doric order which is the most frankly Hellenic, a 
rigorous plan which admitted neither of addition nor sub- 
traction of any importance, and in which variation could 
only affect the details. The East loved compositions that 
can be unfolded without definite beginning or end, those 
long friezes in which the subject has no unity and the figures 
follow one another for as long as the field permits. This 
narrative and continuous method is of eastern origin, and it is 
from the East that the Ionians borrowed it. The restricted 
and geometrical frame of the metope and pediment, on the 
other hand, is truly Greek: it does not allow the imagination 
to wander with no fixed aim, and it obliges the composition 
to be ordered.* On reliefs and in vase-paintings composition 
tends more and more to be strictly unified, to have a begin- 
ning, a centre, and an end, and to avoid looseness. In Greek 
decorative design there is no interlaced ornament that is 
unwound and prolonged indefinitely, as there is in early 
medieval Christian art and in Arab art. 


*f % *k * * 


It is likewise the rational character of Hellenic thought 
that explains the features we have seen revealed in art, this 
love of truth, of reality, and of precision. Reason and logic 
direct the Greek mind, inspiring in it from the 6th century 
onwards the exact and historical sciences which it progres- 


1 See above, p. 133. 2 See above, p. 143. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 289 


sively freed from empiricism and mysticism, forcing every- 
thing to be brought within the bounds of probability. The 
evolution of the shapes of monstrous creatures gives another 
example of it. Already reduced by the anthropomorphism 
which humanized them more and more, many of them dis- 
appeared in the course of time, incapable of surviving because 
their improbability was altogether too shocking to the Greek 
mind. The wings of the supernatural beings, imitated from 
the East, were reduced to a single pair, and Nike abandoned 
the useless second pair that Archermus still preserved for 
her. The Ionian Centaur, with human feet before and horses’ 
hoofs behind, was an heterologous assemblage. How could 
such a creature move with regular gait, run as a man and 
gallop as a horse, with such disparate limbs? So he was 
given an entire animal body surmounted merely by a human 
bust. 

In architecture, each member testifies to the function 
it fulfils. The Doric column and architrave are only lightly 
painted and have no sculptural decoration because they are 
not themselves decorative fields but the supports of such. 
The flutings of the columns, which carry the eye upwards, 
still further accentuate their supporting réle. The Ionic 
order, less purely Greek and contaminated by the East 
because it came into being in Asiatic territory, sometimes 
disregards these principles. More luxuriant and less sober 
than the Doric, it is likewise less rational; its plan is less 
logical and regular,” and ornament comes at last to dissimu- 
late the architectural rdle of the various elements. 

If the Greeks during a long time preferred the pure line 
and disregarded, in drawing, perspective and that modelling 
that gives roundness to bodies, it was, among other reasons, 
because it seemed to them illogical to transform a flat decora- 
tive surface into one that seemed to have depth.* 


* * * * * 


A rational spirit leads to the taste for symmetry. In- 
stinctive in all ages and in every land, in Greece it became 
an esthetic principle, doubtless developed by the Dorian 
invaders, since Atgean art pays little heed to it. The vase- 


1 See above, p. 278. 2 See above, p. 129. 
3 See above, p. 264. E 
19 


290 ART IN GREECE 


painters of the Attic Dipylon show evident care in balancing 
the elements of a decoration around a central motif; those of 
the 7th and 6th centuries hesitate between two tendencies, 
one Ionian and inspired from the East, which turns figures 
all in one direction, and the other, continental, which causes 
two equally balanced motifs to converge towards a centre.’ 
Although the Corinthian and Attic potters employ the Tonian 
zone, they sometimes follow their own instinct and introduce 
into it this symmetrical equilibrium. All vase-painting from 
the earliest time to its close shows this seeking after equili- - 
brium? (Figs. 68 and 64). How many motifs there are whose 
presence is necessitated only by this single desire not to 


Fic. 63. SYMMETRICAL COMPOSITION ON A GREEK VASE, 5TH 
CENTURY. 


break the symmetry, and how many stopgap figures! 
Symmetry at the outset may be very naive, but with time 
it becomes more subtle, less apparent; instead of opposing 
identical figures, there are in Polygnotus’ painting and in 
Phidias’ sculpture® corresponding groups and masses; instead 
of counterparts on either side there are motifs which are only 
analogous. 

The Greek temple shows the application of this principle. 
The front and back facades, the side faces, and the divisions 
of the cella all correspond; the entire building can be divided 
in two, as formerly could the organs of the human body 


1 CXLY, vol. ii, p. 449. 2 CXLY, vol. iii, pp. 838-889, 956. 
3 Ibid., p. 1050. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 291 


under the frontality rule, by a median line, to right and left 
of which all is the same. In the triangle of the pediment 
each wing repeats the grouping of the other—with rigidity 
at Aigina and Olympia, with suppleness in the Parthenon.! 
Buildings are only apparently asymmetrical, because the 
Propylea (Fig. 64) and the Erechtheum (Figs. 18 and 14) are 
undoubtedly unfinished.” 

An innate desire for regularity and repetition inspires the 
alternation of metope and triglyph, of the stones in the 
regular courses known as “ Hellenic ”’_known, it is true, 


EES BEA RAMEE 


‘sy 
Fic. 64. PRIMITIVE PLAN OF THE PROPYLZAA. 


since Mycenzan times, but which became one of the charac- 
teristic elements of the beautiful Greek architecture—and of 
the decorative motifs in vase-painting. 

Symmetry, alternation and repetition, which introduce 
order and logic into nature, awaken the esthetic sense of the 
Greeks, no matter what is the object to which they are applied 
—pediment statue or kitchen cooking-pot: “‘ It is beautiful ” 
said Isomachus,* “ to see footgear ranged in a row according 
to its kind, beautiful to see garments sorted according to 
their usage, and coverlets; beautiful to see brass vases and 
tableware so sorted, and beautiful, too, despite the jeers of 
him who has no wits and is not a serious person, to see cooking- 


1 See above, p. 251 ff. 2 See above, p. 142. 
3 Xenophon’s Gconomicus. 


292 ART IN GREECE 


pots arranged with intelligence and symmetry. Yea, all 
things without exception, thanks to symmetry, will appear 
more beautiful still when they are arranged orderly. All 
these utensils will seem to form a choir; the centre which 
these objects concur in forming creates a beauty which the 
distance of the rest enhances.” 

* * % * CS 


All this, together with rhythm, the canons of proportion 
for the human body and for architectural building, denotes 
a spirit that loves number and its reciprocal relations. The 
instinctive geometrization of the human form, the predomi- 
nance of geometrical over naturalistic motifs, the symmetrical 
notion of grouping and a preference for settings that are 
clearly delimitated, registers, from the time of the earliest 
monuments of the continental Greeks, a contrary spirit to 
the eastern tendency inspiring more particularly the Ionians. 
One already perceives “a certain mathematical spirit” that 
is “an essentially Hellenic element.’”* It is instinctive 
rather than strictly and scientifically studied, because the 
determination of the geometrical and mathematical laws 
that the Greek artists would have applied to their statues 
and buildings and to the shapes and decoration even of their 
vases, remains confused and sterile.2 This predominance of 
number is not contrary to the subtly changing suppleness 
of life. ‘The optical corrections* that the architect introduced 
in the Parthenon and other edifices had in view precisely the 
avoidance of such coldness as would result from too mathe- 
matical lines, and the endowment of the temple with a soul. 


* * * *% %* 


Greek art, which some people consider monotonous, is 
full of infinite variety, but of a variety due to subtle rather 
than sharp differentiation. The same fundamental prin- 
ciples are strictly observed in different Doric temples. Yet 
the independence of the artist is manifested in a number of 
details left to his individual choice, such as the number of 
columns in the facade and along the sides, their height, 
diameter and intercolumniation, the number and distribution 
of the metopes and triglyphs which may either go right 
round the building or be localized on the facade—sometimes 


1 CXLY, vol. ii, p. 450. 2 OXXX, CXXXV. 3 LVI. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 293 


with a return—and the subject of the decoration. Despite 
the repetition of forms and themes, one never sees two painted 
vases quite alike; even in the same palmette border there 
are slight differences. Sometimes vases were made in pairs, 
but the second is never an exact replica of the first; even 
here there is some divergence. Even in a copy there was 
the possibility of introducing variation... And what in- 
genuity the potters employed in combining a very few 
elements differently, so that with three models they could 
compose pictures having ten figures!” At Tanagra and 
Myrina terra cotta statuettes differing in aspect and name 
were none the less produced from the same mould, the variety 
being obtained by the different methods of adjusting the 
parts. “ They only had to bend a head to one side, to raise 
or lower an arm, to bring one leg forward, or to change a 
fan from one hand to the other, to produce ten motifs instead 
of one. And if we then imagine the combination of different 
parts of moulds, it can be easily conceived that it was possible 
to obtain an almost infinite multiplication of motifs.’’ 

Sculptors repeated the same subjects tirelessly in sculpture 
—the general themes of a nude man erect or in repose, and 
the special themes of a boy plucking a thorn from his foot. 
But there were subtle differences between each, in the pose, 
the gestures of the arms, the attributes, the way the hair 
was arranged, the features, and the style, and the rich series 
of ephebi, from the old stiff 6th-century Kouros up to the 
athletes of Lysippus, astonish us by their diversity as woul 
as by their continuity.* 

The artist avoided monotony and coldness by these 
subtle differences. He introduced into repetition an element 
of change that is the life and personality of his work. 
Centauromachy, Amazonomachy, Gigantomachy, exploits of 
Theseus and Heracles—the subjects are ever the same, but 
treated in different fashion every time. See how the artist 
was able to vary the banal theme of the Centauromachy in 
the Parthenon metopes!° The snare and the risk lay in the 
repetition of the same combinations, the same attitudes, the 
same lines, in this perpetual dual between a Centaur and 


1 CXLYV, vol. iii, p. 661; CXLIV, vol. x, pp. 328-329. 


2 CXLYV, vol. iii, pp. 733, 840, 978, 986. 
3 CX. p. 254, 4 See above, pp. 49, 181 ff. 5 XXXIX, 


294 ART IN GREECE 


a Lapith. Yet there are not two of these pieces that are 
identical. The centaur is at the right or the left, he is beaten 
or he is victorious, the battle is broken up into all its phases, 
the bodies are nude or lightly draped. The single rule is 
to get diversity while maintaining the unity of the whole. 
There is the same preoccupation in the distribution of the 
metopes on the building. In the primitive plan the con- 
tinuity of the subject was doubtless intended to be respected 
—on the south the Centauromachy, on the north the Trojan 
legend and the Attic myths; but when the slabs of marble 
were put in place the order was upset. Had it not been so 
there would have been thirty-two metopes coming one after 
the other and each showing a Lapith and a Centaur, which 
would have been monotonous for so great a stretch. To 
obviate this, part of the metopes of the Centauromachy 
were transposed to the centre of the north face, and were 
replaced on the south by an equal number of scenes from 
the other series.1_ Here, the unity of the composition has 
been sacrificed in a small degree to the desire for variety. 
Mechanical and routine repetition is essentially contrary 
to the Greek spirit. In industrial art, whose very principle 
is economic repetition, there was production of series of 
terra cotta figurines, and, coming after the painted vases, 
differing always by slight details, there were relief cups 
made in moulds, characteristic of the Hellenistic period.” 
But in the more carefully produced figurines the boasting- 
tool came into play, after the casting, to sharpen the blunted 
features and to give the work an individual character and the 
mark of the artisan, and this is why the best of the terra cotta 
figurines are as personal as the marble or bronze statues. 


Oo * * k * 


This sense of reality and this clear faculty of reason led 
to sincerity. One does not find subterfuge and still-life 
deception. There is no attempt to deceive as to the nature 
of materials. The Aigeans and the Egyptians already 
painted their walls and vases to look like marble, as did 
the Romans: this procedure is foreign to the real Greece. 
The Etruscans made imitations of bronze ware in clay, but 


1 XXXIX, pp. 133, 138. 4 
* Courby, Les vases grecs a reliefs, 1922. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 295 


this technique, undoubtedly Ionian in origin, never came 
into vogue in Greece to the extent it did in Italy, and the 
Hellenistic ceramics of cups in relief betrayed a falling away 
from Hellenic taste. The same scruple prevented the gilding 
or silvering of statues in bronze and stone or of terra cotta 
figurines until Hellenistic times. 


* * * * * 


The Greek had a sense of proportion, of fitness in environ- 
ment, and of moderation, and the weodtysg became one of 
the necessities of his esthetic. It has been said that in 
architecture and sculpture’ the colossal, the exaggerated and 
the disproportionate generally denote an Oriental influence. 
In the Hellenistic period the sculptors of Pergamum and 
Rhodes with their theatrical action, their emphatic muscles, 
and their excessive pathos, belong to the Asiatic Greek 
schools contaminated by the East. The Belvedere torso,” 
however Lysippian it may be, is over-powerful, because it 
dates from the Ist century B.c., from an epoch in which 
Greek taste had suffered a change. Attica provides the 
perfect example of this harmonious equilibrium. There, the 
sculptor had it instinctively from the very beginning.’ His 
fellow-worker on Dorian soil gave to his statues a too vigorous 
frame and a brutal physiognomy; there is an unnecessary 
superabundance of strength in the Selinus Perseus and in 
Polymedes’ Kouros. In Ionia, on the contrary, grace and 
refinement ran the risk of degenerating into affectation and 
mannerism, and the human body was given no muscles. 
In Attica, the earliest sculpture in soft stone on the Acropolis 
is already preserved from such excesses in both directions; 
the build of the body is strong but less brutal, and elegant 
but with less affectation about it; the countenance is smiling, 
but without exaggeration. This feature persists throughout 
the evolution of Attic art, and ‘‘ Atticism ” is precisely that 
exquisite sense of proportion in all things that finds its most 
beautiful expression in the marbles of Phidias. In drapery, 
musculature and composition the note is always true; one 
feels that the motto of Attic art is uydev ayav. Ionian 
work, on the other hand, continues to sin slightly in the 


1 See above, p. 65. 2 LXII, vol. ii, p. 632. 
3 See above, p. 151. 


296 ART IN GREECE 


direction of excess.1 The friezes of the heréon at Trysa,” 
and of the Nereids’ monument,’ are too long, too prolix in 
their story, and their execution is too facile and flowing ; 
in the Nereids’ statues, beautiful as they are, there are weak- 
ness, ungraceful attitudes and careless workmanship. In 
the Peloponnese there still persists in Polyclitus a certain 
heaviness in the proportions and dryness in the anatomy 
of his figures. Athens was able to reconcile the qualities 
and to avoid the faults of both. 


* * * ** % 


Sobriety and simplicity are other traits of Greek art. 
The archaic Peloponnesian work has an air of heaviness and 
awkwardness and that of the isles of elegance. But whereas 
the latter sacrifices something to luxuriance and redundancy 

of embroidery, to the minutie of the hair and drapery, the 
former is striking in its sobriety; the drapery has few folds, 
the hair is simple, sometimes merely shown in mass. When 
Ionian influence declined about 510, this Dorian ideal finally 
got the upper hand. And thenceforth the principle of Greek 
aesthetics was to obtain the greatest effect with the simplest 
of means. 


* 2 re Stas % 

The artist had a desire for perfection and for conscientious 
execution. Classic architecture clearly demonstrates this to 
us in the naked walls of the Parthenon and the Propylea 
whose carefully trimmed stones fit with such precision that 
the joins are almost imperceptible. In plastic work the 
parts hidden from view are often not worked with the same 
care as the others; sometimes, however, they are. The feet 
of the Auriga at Delphi, hidden in the well of the chariot, 
are as carefully finished as the head or the arms which are 
visible.* And what care is evident, in bronzes, to hide the 
imperfections of casting by minute repairs, so finely done 
that they become imperceptible !°—And in marble statues, 
to hide the joins of different portions !° It was this feeling, 


1 See above, p. 187. 2 LXITI, vol. ii, p. 202. 
° Ibid., p. 216; LXIII, p. 248. 

* Bourguet, Les ruines de Delphes, p. 226. 

* CLXXXYV, s.v. ‘‘ Statuaria ars.”’ 

§ LXXIX, p. 227. 


THE GREEK IDEAL 297 


to some extent, that prompted the artist to leave on one 
side imperfect material such as wood, soft stone, or clay, 
for hard and homogeneous material which permitted careful 
and irreproachable workmanship.’ 


% * % * % 


But the artist did not merely desire truth and perfection 
in his work, but beauty. He saw beauty everywhere, even 
in the humblest articles of daily use. The vase types had 
changed since the Mycenzan wreck; some of them, like the 
stirrup vase, disappeared because they no longer responded 
to the current needs and taste and had been supplanted 
by others. The Hellenic pottery forms entered on their 
long course of development. One sees them becoming 
modified by time, not only in a more practical but in a 
more beautiful sense that they may offer the most perfectly 
harmonious curves to the eye. Study, for example, the 
modifications in the amphora, or in the kylix; in this last 
the relation between the height of the foot and the bowl 
had to be established, and the outline of the bowl and its 
depth had to be determined; various experiments followed 
one another until the kylix arrived at its final and perfect 
form in the Attic productions of the first quarter of the 
5th century.” The themes had to be chosen and adapted 
to the vessel, and the decoration had to be distributed over 
the field and its composition worked out. All these experi- 
mental efforts tended to the realization of the maximum 
of beauty even in industrial art. Indeed, ‘“‘in no other 
country of the world has industrial art been at the level of 
art, properly so-called, as it was in Greece. ... Whether 
in vase, terra cotta, hair ornament or coin, one is sure of 
finding some definite esthetic quality’ (Pottier).’ The 
architect, by his preoccupation with the material he was to 
employ, and by his study of the proportions of his building 
and all the problems thereby raised; and the sculptor, by 
undertaking the various experimental efforts we have described 
in the foregoing pages, were always guided by their innate 
sense of beauty.® This beauty they all perceived in the 
human body, in its movements and in its attitudes of repose, 
both nude and draped. They were one and all sensitive 


1 See above, p. 173. 2 CXLIV, vol. x, p. 213. 
3 See, however, p. 45. 


298 ART IN GREECE 


to the contraction of a muscle, to the fall of a piece of drapery, 
to the translucid whiteness of Parian marble and the sombre 
hues of bronze, to the precision of a naked wall built in 
beautiful regular courses—in short, to the thousand and 
one details that stirred their esthetic sensibility and set it 
vibrating, whereas these things leave so many people wholly 
indifferent. 


CHAPTER II 
EVOLUTION OF THE IDEAL 


From the outset up to the end, from the time when works 
of art first appeared, after the Dorian invasion, to the day 
when the creative force had dried up and when art exhausted 
itself in vain repetitions, the xsthetic ideal was evolving, 
like everything else, and was never at a standstill. It is 
closely linked with technical progress which alone rendered 
its expression possible, and a knowledge of which is essential 
if we are to understand its various phases; it is likewise 
closely linked with the social vicissitudes that we studied 
further back. The various stages are as follow: 


1. From the earliest days to the end of the 6th century. 
Elaboration of technique and ideal. 

. 5th century. Technical mastery. Idealism. 

. 4th century. Beginnings of Realism. 

. Hellenistic period. Apogee of Realism. 

. Decline. Exhaustion of Creative Power. 


Oe & bo 


* k f * 7 


Each of these phases has new features proper to itself, 
differentiating it from the others.. But at the same time 
each phase foreshadows, albeit in uncertain and timid fashion, 
the tendencies that are to dominate the succeeding period. 
It is this co-existence of separate traits that makes art so 
complex at any given moment and that prevents it from being 
completely reduced to an exclusive formula—to whose rule 
it would immediately supply modifying exceptions; it is 
this co-existence, too, that makes tradition, the regular 
seriation linking the art of each century to that which has 
gone before and that which is to follow. 

No new creation ever quite disappears; it may fall out 
of fashion and usage, and be relegated to a lower stratum 
of art and of society, but it persists none the less. Greek 
art affords many characteristic examples of this. In vase- 

299 


300 ART IN GREECE 


painting the black-figure process was dethroned about the 
close of the 6th century in favour of red-figure; but though 
it may thenceforth lose its artistic value, and though its 
rival may realize fresh progress, although it sinks socially 
and is employed for vases of little value, and is merely a 
ritual survival in the Panathenaic amphore, it yet lives very 
nearly as long as red-figure, almost to the time of Alexander, 
when both black-figure and red-figure are supplanted by 
pottery in relief. 

In plastic art the archaic style of the 6th century is not 
suppressed by the progress and the ideal of the 5th century. 
About 418 one of the Erechtheum sculptors was still carving 
the back of one of the Korai in the identical manner of one 
of his predecessors of a hundred years earlier,” and archaistic 
art,? in honour in Greco-Roman times, goes back in an 
uninterrupted sequence to its inspiration in the 6th century. 
A long line of sculptors carries on for hundreds of years 
the creations and the style of Phidias, Polyclitus, Praxiteles, 
Lysippus and Scopas, and these masters live on in the works 
of their imitators. 

As time goes on art becomes more and more complex 
and varied, and at a given moment one may find all the 
earlier tentatives existing side by side. In the centuries 
just prior to and just after the beginning of the Christian 
era, some will be inspired by the Hellenistic realism and by 
the Pergamene and Rhodian schools, others will prefer the 
gentleness of the Praxitelian tradition, and others will favour 
athletic types in imitation of Polyclitus and Lysippus, whereas 
still others will seek their models in a yet more distant past 
in the classicism of the 5th century and the archaism of 
the 6th. 

Sometimes there are genuine renaissances. These are of 
a technical order: pottery in relief, so quickly supplanted 
by painted pottery, was known in the 7th and 6th centuries. 
But when painted pottery declined at the end of the 4th 
century, the old technique came into favour again, and 
pottery in relief was characteristic of the Hellenistic period.* 
Some were esthetic: the Neo-Attic and archaistic renaissance 
brought back into vogue an outworn ideal. 


1 CXLYV, vol. iii, p. 647 ff. 2 LXXVIII, p. 497. 
3 XCII. | 4 Courby, op. 1. 


EVOLUTION OF THE IDEAL 301 


At a given moment, too, one may find an artistic formula 
adumbrated which was to flourish later. During the height 
of 5th-century idealism, realism claims its right to existence. 
It inspires certain details of the pediments at Olympia, and 
some masters yield more than others to it—for instance, 
Pythagoras, Myron, Lycius and Styppax. It was especially 
manifested in vase-painting, which had more liberty than 
sculpture, and in types of the lower social order.’ All these 
essays prepared the way. If the 4th century was to see 
realism vindicate its sway over high art and introduce into 
it portraiture and passion, that is because these features 
were already dormant in the minor arts of the 5th century. 


1 See above, p. 81 ff. 


CHAPTER III 


FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS TO THE END OF THE 
6TH CENTURY. ELABORATION OF TECHNIQUE 
AND IDEAL 


Durinc the few hundred years that elapsed between the 
beginnings of Greek civilization and the end of the 6th 
century, art was constituting its domain, elaborating types, 
and experimenting with technique. It was a slow prepara- 
tion, as ever in the beginning, since development accelerates 
as time goes on, and the later stages are more rapid. Though 
the artist required several centuries in which to dominate 
his material and bend it to his archaic ideal, it only needed 
some hundred years for the idealism of the 5th century to 
be succeeded by the still timid realism of the 4th, and another 
century for this to develop into the keenly pursued Hellen- 
istic naturalism. But we should not forget that this period 
of trial and groping enabled art, about 500, to become 
emancipated from its early fetters, and to arrive, a few 
decades later, at the perfection of Periclean Atticism. 

And what a laborious task it was, indeed, that faced the 
artist on the morrow of the Dorian invasion! The esthetic 
of the Augeans was no more, and a new spirit, characterized 
further back in this book, animated Greece. For its realiza- 
tion the Greeks possessed but a rudimentary technique, 
because the invasion had flung the old population back into 
barbarism. Art began to rise again out of the night of the 
‘“‘ Hellenic medieval age,’ and in geometrical Greece the 
ivory idols of the Dipylon, the Boeotian terra cotta figurines 
resembling bells, and the triangular and rectangular figures. 
painted on the vases show a primitive and infantine design. 

The artist learned to choose his materials. In measure as 
his hand grew more skilled and his esthetic sense was 
awakened, he gave up wood for soft stone, and soft stone 
for marble, both in sculpture and in architecture. From the 
first quarter of the 6th century marble was the material of 

302 


THE SIXTH CENTURY 303 


statuary par excellence, and although limestone still continued 
to be used for a long time in architecture, marble, while it 
had still to wait to be used alone in the beautiful temples 
of the Periclean age, yet was already in demand, for certain 
portions of the building, in the second half of the 6th century. 
At the same time hollow bronze casting provided statuary 
with resources hitherto unknown. 3 

In architecture the Doric and Ionic orders were created, 
the one in continental Greece, the other in Greece in Asia, 
each of them asserting a special aspect of the Greek spirit, 
and one of the opposite poles of Hellenic thought and Hellenic 
esthetics. Its elements, plans, forms of columns and capitals 
and entablature, their disposal and reciprocal proportions, 
and their polychromy were fixed. The temple, a living 
organism, gradually lengthened its stunted column and 
diminished the height of its entablature; the Doric capital 
straightened its too depressed curve, and the Ionic volute 
united horizontally its two scrolls. There was an effort to 
discover what was the most suitable painted and _ plastic 
ornamentation for this building, and the genre of the salient 
of the pediments and metopes; the principles governing the 
composition of this decoration were studied and these studies 
resulted, from the end of the 6th century onwards, in the 
symmetrical principle for the pediment and the binary for 
the metope. At the end of the 6th century there was 
no great progress left to realize, but there were subtleties 
to introduce, and especially an increased harmony and 
eurhythmy. These are all so many Hellenic innovations, 
foreign to all other art whether anterior to or contem- 
poraneous with Greek art. 

In sculpture in the round the erstwhile human schema 
of the geometrical period was evolving into something more 
advanced. Types were fixed—for the erect male figure, 
generally nude, the Kouros; and for the erect female figure, 
nearly always draped, the Kore; as also for the enthroned 
and dignified figure, and the horseman. These few themes, 
very simple and always alike, which, being still indeterminate, 
were equally suitable for gods and mortals, were erected on 
tombs and in sacred precincts either as cult statues or as 
ex votos of the dedicators. 

Relief began to appear within the frame of Ionian friezes 


304 ART IN GREECE 


and Dorian metopes, ex votos, and funerary sculptures in 
which the long narrow Ionian stele predominated, and was 
carved with a single erect figure in profile. 

Painting on a large scale came into existence and experi- 
mented with manner and method, revealed to us, imper- 
fectly, through the medium of industrial vase-painting. The 
potter worked out a rich repertory of forms for his vessels— 
the aryballus, alabaster, pyxis, cenoche, amphora and crater 
—some of which were to disappear as time went on while 
others persisted and were perfected, their contours being 
improved. The painter traced on them silhouettes in profile, 
in dark colour on a light ground, frequently obtained by the 
cast shadow method, and in which the interior details were 
shown by leaving blanks in Ionian, and by incisions in the 
Corinthian and Attic, ceramics. The beautiful Attic produc- 
tions in black-figure (Plate XII) were soon to surpass earlier 
work and to supplant the products of other workshops, which 
gave up competing against Athens. It was in this city that, 
in the second half of the 6th century, the red-figure process 
was to come into existence by a reversal of the values of the 
ground and the figure, a process destined to a brilliant future 
in the 5th century. 

Cast into these shapes and carried out in these materials, 
the subjects implicated technical problems that the artist had 
to solve—such as pose, gesture, anatomy, drapery, action, 
and composition, which we examined further back. It is 
here especially that we clearly perceive the technical limita- 
tions of this archaic art which imposed on it the convention 
of frontality in sculpture in the round, and of altogether 
ignoring foreshortening and perspective in drawing and 
relief. One may say that the part played by technique, up 
to the end of the 6th century, is tremendous; the artist’s 
eye only gradually came to see reality in its actual aspect; 
his hand, at first maladroit, only grew firm very slowly. 
Convention and the preponderance of detail over ensemble 
obscured his view, and the material too often got the better 
of his hand. 

Nevertheless an ideal emerged, the adumbration of the 
ideal that was to assert itself in the 5th century. It was 
a religious, social and patriotic ideal, exalting, in a closely 
interwoven union, the celestial and terrestrial world of the 


PLATE XII 


BLACK-FIGURED ATTIC AMPHORA BIRTH OF ATHENA 


(Geneva Museum) 


{ face p. 304 


THE SIXTH CENTURY 305 


Hellenes, by the building of their temples and tombs, by the 
erection of their cult and funerary statues, and by the varied 
ex votos they dedicated. 

Man asserted a despotic sway. The sculptors carved and 
the painters painted in order to glorify him under his mortal 
or divine form. They commemorated the athlete and re- 
counted the exploits of gods and heroes, because, haunted as 
it was by this human conception, mythology won a definite 
place in figured art. The ceramist, under Oriental influence, 
at first substituted floral and animal designs for the geo- 
metrical motifs of the early days, and then man came to 
take a more and more preponderant place in pottery decora- 
tion. Together with man, scenes borrowed from social and 
mythological reality made their appearance on vases, to 
such a point, indeed, as gradually to eliminate all other 
subjects, and the old motifs were relegated to second place 
according to the rules of the hierarchy of genres.* 

The main esthetic preoccupations of Greek art asserted 
themselves together with this anthropomorphic ideal—the 
anatomical features of the human body, drapery, pose, 
- grouping—henceforth to be considered indispensable elements 
of beauty. This ideal called for a strong man presenting, 
in its nudity, his bodily beauty with its broad shoulders, 
slender waist and well-covered buttocks, such as it was 
fashioned by gymnastic exercises. And already a preference 
for masculine shapes asserts itself which was to influence the 
specific forms of woman and the child, giving to the former 
slender hips and a boyish chest, and turning the child into a 
small edition of the man. But woman’s form also found 
favour: too masculine and austere in Dorian territory (Athena 
of the metope at Selinus, etc.), it was gentler, prettier and 
more finely decked among the Ionians. Woman’s body 
provided the opportunity for qualities of grace and delicacy 
to reveal themselves, as man’s body was the vehicle for the 
revelation of Dorian strength. 

Countenances were not yet lit by mobility of feeling. 
At the beginning the artist did not seek to get any particular 
expression, because he was too busily occupied in giving to 
each part of the face its proper form and in linking these up 
more or less correctly, to think about the life of thought 


1 OXLY, vol. i, p. 250; VI, vol. ii, p. 495. 
20 


306 ART IN GREECE 


or of the soul. But, as time went on, two kinds of faces 
can be distinguished: one with stern features, rectilinear 
mouth and eyes, in Peloponnesian art; and the other, in 
Ionian art, with smiling lips and eyes with tip-tilted corners. 
This, however, was not due to a conscious seeking after real 
feeling. The smile’ bestowed indifferently on all—on the 
dying and on angry gods—which was perhaps born from 
some technical necessity, became stereotyped, a simple 
esthetic convention (Plate XIII). Did it mean that man 
presented himself amiably to the gods and that they showed 
their goodwill towards him? It would seem more likely 
that it was already the social defence of man who disdained 
to show his feelings and who disguised them under an amiable 
expression, as we still do, and as the Japanese do. To be 
master of oneself in all circumstances, in anger, pain, and 
even agony, and not to allow human dignity to be upset by 
the accidents of life—this is the meaning of the archaic 
smile, as it is the meaning of Dorian austerity, and both 
foreshadow the serenity of the 5th century. 

These technical and spiritual experiments and efforts 
were pursued in all the regional centres of Greek art. Ionia, 
enamoured of amiable delicacy and richness but sometimes 
lacking in real strength in its musculature, half Asiatic by 
its geographical situation and by its political relations, brings 
precious gifts to the common patrimony of the Greek zsthetic 
—the technical knowledge of bronze casting, the appreciation 
of the beauty of marble and the practical working of this 
material, the science of drapery, the spirit of grace and deli- 
cacy which was somewhat to temper that which was too 
rough in the Dorian ideal, movement and picturesque realism. 
Attic art especially, and the whole of the Peloponnese, felt 
this influence in the second half of the 6th century, It is 
Ionia who plays the leading part in the 6th century, who 
really initiated Greece artistically. When she lost her 
political independence and when her influence ceased to be 
dominant, about 510, the lessons learned from her were not 
lost, and Atticism owes to Ionia a share of its most beautiful 
qualities. It is from the Ionian spirit that a number of 
5th-century works derive, works of rare delicacy in which 
light draperies allow the feminine form to be seen through 
them (pediments of the Parthenon, the Fréjus Aphrodite, 


PLATE XIII 


HEAD OF PTOION KOUROS 


(National Museum, Athens) 


6th Century 


[ face p. 306 


THE SIXTH CENTURY 307 


Nike of Peeonius) and, in the Hellenistic period, when Greece 
proper yielded the lead in artistic matters to Asia Minor 
and to the Hellenized East, a triumphant return to Ionianism 
inspires the realism, the love of scenery and of violent move- 
ment, qualities already in embryo in the 7th and 6th centuries, 
more particularly in Ionian vase-painting. 

To this tendency is opposed the Dorian art of continental 
Greece, testifying to quite other qualities—austerity, sobriety, 
energy that is sometimes brutal. Just as the Ionian spirit 
persists throughout Greek art, so is the somewhat too massive 
strength of the Polyclitian ephebi in direct descent from the 
Selinus Perseus and the Kouroi of Delphi. Peloponnesian 
Greece ever preserves its instinctive preference for man, for 
musculature and bronze, over woman, drapery and marble. 

Greek art had need to be stimulated by this tonic as a 
counterpoise to Ionian delicacy, which was in danger of 
degenerating into affectation and effeminacy. This Dorian 
spirit, hitherto confined to the Peloponnese and to the colonies 
of Magna Grecia and Sicily, was to become dominant about 
500, and to replace the Ionian influence by its own; and 
Greek art, having learned from both, and uniting in a nice 
equilibrium Dorian strength and Ionian grace, was well on the 
way to achieve perfection. 

This perfection was realized in the 5th century by the 
Attic artist who, from the earliest times, had known how 
to maintain a just balance between his two neighbours and 
to temper strength with grace; marvellously favoured by 
the circumstances of the Persian wars and the political 
prosperity of Athens, he was to become the esthetic master 
of all Greece. | 


CHAPTER IV 


THE 5TH CENTURY. TECHNICAL MASTERY, 
IDEALISM 


Tue Doric order in architecture, after the temples of Augina 
and Olympia, achieved its most perfect expression in the 
Parthenon of Ictinus and brought the long efforts towards 
eurhythmy, proportion, and optical anticipations to com- 
pletion. Henceforth Dorie buildings could be multiplied; 
Mnesicles solved some difficult problems in the Propylea— 
thought as much of by the Ancients as the Parthenon—and 
Ictinus also erected the temple at Phigalia. Nevertheless 
there was no further progress, rather even a decadence in 
the Doric order. The Ionic order, which came into being 
in Greece in Asia, had not yet been used in continental Greece 
except for isolated columns—supporting ex votos, and not 
architectural—and the Treasury of Siphnus was a purely 
Tonian work implanted in the soil of Delphi. The Ionic first 
made its way into continental Greece under the gis of the 
Doric. Departures from the strict rules of the Dorie order 
opened the door to the newcomer. The Parthenon, like the 
old Hekatompedon of the Pisistratide, maybe, had certain 
Tonic elements such as the frieze, and details of the mouldings, 
and the number of the columns of the fagade. This was still 
but a small thing. Mnhesicles went further: he placed two 
interior rows of three Ionic columns in the Propylea. Other 
buildings of the second half of the 5th century show this 
same association of orders, the Ionic still playing a subordinate 
role (exterior frieze of the Theseum; columns and interior 
frieze of the temple of Phigalia, etc.). Finally, the Ionic 
became entirely emancipated from Doric tutelage. The 
temple of Athena Nike is conceived entirely in this order, of 
which the Erechtheum, larger and more sumptuous, was the 
ultimate consecration on Greek soil. Richer, more elegant 
and more supple in its ornament, it responded better to the 
new tendencies of luxury and wealth that appeared in the 
308 


THE FIFTH CENTURY 309 


second half of the 5th century, and which developed pro- 
gressively; it was to win general favour. But then comes 
the rise of the Corinthian capital in much the same way. 
A variant of the Ionic, inspired by the acanthus crowning 
funerary stele (Fig. 10), it was employed for the first time 
in the temple of Phigalia for the head of an isolated column, 
and this building demonstrates the hierarchical alliance of 
the three principles—the Doric constituting the mass of the 
building, the Ionic providing the columns and interior friezes, 
and the Corinthian limited to a single column in the cella. 
The tholos of Polyclitus the Younger at Epidaurus still 
preserved the subordination of Ionic to Doric. But the 
Choragic ex voto of Lysicrates at Athens (335-4), in the 
4th century, is the first entirely Corinthian building. Still 
richer and more deeply sculped than the Ionic, the Corinthian 
capital—one can hardly speak of an order—corresponds with 
the third phase of an architecture that was evolving in the 
direction of a growing luxuriousness. 

Thus the second half of the 5th century covers the apogee 
of the Doric, the final adoption of the Ionic, and the genesis 
of the Corinthian.* 

In plastic art and in drawing, the conventions of the 
6th century (Fig. 65, Plate VIII) had been useful in that 
they prevented the artist from prematurely grappling with 
problems still too difficult for him, and caused him to con- 
centrate his attention on the details of anatomy, drapery 
and features, but they were in danger of arresting him on the 
path of progress, and of keeping him on the same level as 
his fellow-workers in other lands of antiquity. 

The artist broke away from them from 500 onwards. 
Urged on by his feeling for the real, by his love of life and 
by his esthetic feeling, he realized that frontality, oddities 
in drawing, incorrect outlining of muscles and drapery, were 
so many errors, and that the archaic smile and the advancing 
of the left leg and the left leg alone were not the sole possible 
aspects provided by reality. Henceforth observation was 
truthful, and, in consequence, to the monotonous schema 
there succeeded the variety of life afforded by.the different 
attitudes of the body, alone or in groups, in repose or in 
action, and variety of subject. Some new technical problems 

1 See above, pp. 180 ff., 141 ff. 


310 ART IN GREECE 


resulted, such as that of the more precise adaptation of the 
details of drapery and musculature to this unceasing mobility, 
giving rise to efforts to achieve rhythm, proportion and 
composition." 

The horizon was broadened. Details no longer stood out 
alone, but the artist’s mind embraced the ensemble, and for 
the old fragmentary analysis was substituted synthesis and 
co-ordination, and a tendency towards simplicity and sobriety 
was favoured by Peloponnesian influences.” 

The emancipation of Greek art, begun about 500, was 
almost complete by about the middle of the 5th century. By 
then the last errors and awkwardnesses had disappeared, and 
the artist knew his business to perfection and how to realize 
his ideal without let or hindrance from technical difficulties. 
The way for the great masters of the second half of the 5th 
century, Phidias* and Polyclitus,* had been prepared by 
their forerunners such as Critius and Nesiotes, Hegias and 
Myron’ in Attic art, Ageladas and his disciples in the Argive 
school, the Aéginetans,° Pythagoras of Rhegium,’ and many 
more besides. These .artists likewise created masterpieces, 
- but they somewhat savoured, perhaps, of harshness; full 
maturity was only reached just after their day (Plate XIV). 

From now on artistsimpressed their personalities on art. 
The names of Pythagoras, of Myron, Polygnotus, Micon, and 
Panainus, to quote at random, could not be passed over in 
silence. The 6th-century artist, no doubt, could be an 
innovator, and Archermus of Chios invented, or rather trans- 
posed to Nike an Oriental type, but he was still incapable 
of clearly asserting his originality; he modestly pursued his 
work within the narrow limits imposed on him by convention, 
the analytic study of details and the studio tradition. From 
the beginning of the 5th century, being free to adopt the 
pose and subject that best suited him, and having mastered 
the technical rules of his art, he asserted himself, and the 
role of the artistic individuality now began. The history 
of Greek art which, hitherto, had been the history of local 
and regional schools, now became that of individual great 
masters who impressed on art their own esthetic vision, thus 


1 See above, p. 179 ff. 2 See above, p. 287 ff. 
3’ XXXIX, CLVIII, CLXV-VI. * CLXVII, CLXX. 
5 CLXX. 6 Furtwaengler, Agina, 1906. 7 CLXIV. 


PLATE XIV 


THE HELLENIC PROFILE. FEMALE HEAD FROM 
WEST PEDIMENT AT OLYMPIA 


About 460 


{ face p. 310 


THE FIFTH CENTURY 311 


giving rise to schools of disciples, and radiated their influence 
both*spatially and in time. We can follow the fortunes of 
the styles of Phidias, Polyclitus, Praxiteles and Lysippus 
right up to the closing moments of Greek art. 

The ideal sketched out by the 6th-century artists now 
acquired precision. The unceasing changes in man and in 
nature did not interest the artist any more than the savant 
or the philosopher, the poet or the historian. He desired to 
pass from the particular to the general, to create types which 
would not be of one time but of all time. Eliminating the 
accidental and the individual he retained only that which 
was eternal. 

It was this desire for abstraction that imposed the Hellenic 
profile’ on the 5th century. The earliest Peloponnesian 
heads of the 6th century already show this vertical nose and 
forehead in which one is but the prolongation of the other, 
whereas the Ionian foreheads are receding and the nose 
points out in front. From 500 we can see the profile straight- 
ening in Attic art at the same time that new principles were 
everywhere being introduced into the then flourishing Dorian 
schools (Augina, Argos). The Hellenic profile, of which we 
get typical examples, often regularized to excess, in the 
painting of Attic lecythi in the middle of the 5th century, 
is not an imitation of nature but an esthetic convention, 
no doubt resulting from a desire for abstraction to be seen 
at this period in all art. A just mean, a norm for all, was 
sought, such as would avoid the accidents of aquiline, or of 
pug noses, left to inferior mortals. A few sculptors, more 
realistic than the rest, already slightly accidented the athletic 
profile, and Myron, maybe, foreshadowed Praxiteles in this 
particular. But it was not till the 4th century gave proof 
of realism, by depressing the root of the nose and making 
the forehead swell, that this too uniform regularity was 
broken. 

It was this desire for abstraction that eliminated all 
individual or fleeting expression from faces (Plate XYV).’ 
They reflect no definite feeling no matter what the action 
in which the body is engaged; they no longer smile as they 
did in the 6th century, nor pout as they did at the beginning 
of the 5th when the artist, having broken with the tradition 

1 See above, p. 85. 2 VI, vol. iii, p. 231. 


312 ART IN GREECE 


of the archaic smile, went rather to the opposite extreme 
and gave a sulky-looking mouth to his statues. Almost 
impassive, they are equidistant from joy and sorrow, calm 
with a superhuman serenity. No trace of ugliness disturbs 
the harmony of head and body. There are no portraits; that 
of Pericles by Cresilas, if we leave out of account the strategus’ 
helmet,* might as well be that of a god or a hero. Nor is 
there age that enfeebles the body and wrinkles the coun- 
tenance, unless it be rejuvenated and ennobled and approxi- 
mated, like that of the woman and the child, to the age type 
that belongs to the adult in the plenitude of his youthful 
and manly strength. Nor yet historical scenes—unless under 
the guise of legend and myth. Nor scenery—merely an 
indeterminate background. On funerary stele, the dead, 
whether they had been young or old, handsome or ugly, 
have all the unalterable beauty, eternal youth and perfect 
serenity of the Parthenon marbles. This so noble art is 
abstract, rational, idealist; it addresses itself more to the 
intelligence than to the heart; and with this art we find 
ourselves in the domain of the pure idea of Plato. The 
fugitive and changing side of things is displeasing to it, and 
for it the only truth is eternal truth. 

It is at this period of Greek development, and ure then, 
that we can speak of “serenity.” The dogma of “ Greek 
serenity,’’* created by the pundits of the 18th century (Lessing, 
Winckelmann), attributes to all Greek art a calm and absence 
of passion, and, by the most ingenious subtleties, recognizes 
this serenity even in the most tortured productions of 
Hellenistic times—in the Laocoon, the chef-d’ceuvre of pathos 
at its most emotional. This notion that still survives in 
certain manuals and in the thought of certain ill-informed 
writers is quite mistaken. To admit it would be to believe 
in the immobility of Greek art that was never to have 
but one ideal before it which could never change by a 
hair’s-breadth. The monuments themselves contradict this. 
Serenity there is, but only in the 5th century. Because, 
from the 4th, art leans towards realism and makes a great 
effort to achieve pathos—new tendencies developed to the 
utmost by the Hellenists. 

Perfect serenity conforms to the xsthetic thought of the 

1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 133. 2 VI, vol. i, p. 97. 


PLATE XV 


TERRACOTTA HEAD FROM PHOCIS. (Berlin Museum) 
5th Century 


Il face p. 312 


THE FIFTH CENTURY 313 


5th century in figured art as in literature—before it had been 
disturbed by Euripides. In the strong and healthy body the 
head cannot play a predominant part or attract attention 
by a too marked expressiveness. The harmony of the whole 
would thereby be upset. Thought and feeling do not yet 
reduce the body to slavery; the ideal is that of perfect balance 
between the life physical and the moral and intellectual life; 
gymnastics mould the body, in education, as reading, music, 
singing and poetry mould the mind. This impassiveness is 
suitable for such handsome creatures as nude ephebi and 
young women in the Dorian peplos, whose corporeal repose 
it seems to enhance. It is a little surprising in figures engaged 
in some violent form of exercise. Should not the countenance 
of the Diskobolos of Myron be contracted by the effort made 
_ at the moment when, his tense muscles strung like a catapult, 
he is about to hurl the discus far from him? But he wears 
a mask of glacial calm; if we saw the head detached from 
the body we should think it belonged to a statue in the most 
complete repose. This is not incapacity on the part of the 
artist who knows quite well how to express the surprise 
caused by the discovery of the pipes in an inferior being 
like the Silenus Marsyas. It is the deliberate control of 
the athlete resembling the frigid reserve depicted on the 
countenance of Athena before Marsyas despite her haughty 
anger. 

The Greek of the 5th century was proud of himself; he 
lived in that heroic epoch in which the small Hellenic nation, 
though weak, had gloriously beaten back the enemy and 
become conscious of its own valour. As already in the 6th 
century—if we admit the social significance of the smile— 
to yield to one’s feelings or passions and to perpetuate them 
in art seemed unworthy of a member of a noble race who 
under all circumstances must show complete self-mastery. 
The ancients said that no one had ever seen Pericles laugh, 
and the death of his son, carried off by plague, in no way 
altered his calm or his energy; up to the end he was to 
encourage his fellow-citizens and to be the proud soul of 
the city. 

This serenity is also a mark of human confidence in the 
divinity. The art of the 5th century, still entirely religious 
and civic, is an expression of gratitude to the gods for the 


314 ART IN GREECE 


protection accorded to the Greeks in this decisive hour of 
their national story, and it exalts the city in its victories. 
Is not the Acropolis, that pedestal for Periclean monuments, 
one vast act of homage in stone rendered to Athena and to 
Athens, to the goddess and the city ? Man was in the hand 
of his gods: this is what gave him his strength of soul and 
his calm; he was a member of a community to which he 
owed his all—that is what constituted his impersonality. 

Indications of expression are very discreet in plastic art, 
and more precise in vase-painting (Fig. 66).* And there are 
slight subtle variations between one artist and another. 
Myron and Polyclitus give to their ephebi countenances of 

: perfect tranquillity untroubled. 
by thought; as artists who 
were fascinated by the form of 
the body, which they desired 
before all else to make as 
beautiful as possible, they did 
not bother themselves at all 
about the life of the mind. 
But features are more expres- 
sive on the Parthenon. The 
ephebi and the young girls of 
the Panathenza, with heads 
modestly bent, seem thought- 
ful. The others seem to be stiffened in an impassiveness 
altogether physical, or strained by some effort (Olympia, 
Polyclitus); these have really a peaceful serenity which 
accepts life as it is without seeking to struggle against tt. 
Phidias seems already to foreshadow, by this attenuation 
and softened aspect, the pensive and sensuous reverie of 
Praxitelian countenances. 

Expression, in the 5th century, consists only in slight 
nuances. The discreet smile praised by the ancients in the 
mysterious Sosandra of Calamis, and the smile which gently 
lightens the countenances of the Tralles Caryatid and the 
Fréjus Aphrodite seems to be a reminiscence of the old archaic 
smile. 

The 5th century found its most beautiful artistic ex- 
pression in Atticism. The Augina school had but a passing 


1 VIL 


Fic. 66. WARRIOR, ON A 6TH- 
CENTURY VASE. 


THE FIFTH CENTURY 315 


brilliance in the first half of the 5th century, disappearing 
amidst the political misfortunes of the island. The Pelopon- 
nese, it is true, was to see the school of Argos flourish, which 
was rendered illustrious by Ageladas and his immediate 
disciples, and then by Polyclitus and his successors, and 
which maintained from the beginning up to the very end 
the tradition inaugurated in the 6th century by Polymedes. 
But the artistic leadership that belonged to the Ionians up 
to the end of the 6th century was lost by them and now passed 
to Athens. From the 6th century onward, with the “ century 
of Pisistratus,’’ Athens was preparing for her commercial 
and political expansion which was to march side by side 
with her esthetic domination. The 5th century brought 
the realization of both. In the short space of time separating 
_ the morrow of the great Persian battles (Delian league, 477) 
from the peace of 449, Athens became the unchallenged 
mistress of a great maritime empire, and jealous Sparta, 
occupied with her continental policy, did not contest her 
domination. At peace with Persia, the ruin caused by the 
invasion repaired, prosperous once more, having at her 
disposal the treasure transferred to her by her allies in 450, 
and her commercial fleet sailing the seas under the protection 
of her navy, Athens is also the intellectual and artistic capital 
of Greece. All the most illustrious men of the day throughout 
Greek lands flocked within her walls. Drawn by the great 
artistic projects of Pericles, artists from all over Greece 
mingled in Athens with the Attic artists, and Agoracritus 
of Paros, and many another, arriving from other cities of the 
Athenian empire, received there the teaching of Phidias. 
Athens now spread far and wide the fame of her art; she set 
up in the heart of the Peloponnese buildings inspired by 
the Parthenon, whose architect, Ictinus, subsequently to 420, 
built the temple of Phigalia; she influenced the Ionian artists 
who worked for the Lycian and Carian dynasts, and it was 
Athens that caused the style of Phidias and his pupils to find 
acceptance everywhere. Athens continued to play the part of 
the artistic metropolis of Greece up to the end; even after 
the centres of artistic production had been displaced in the 
Hellenistic period, she retained her glorious renown as the 
city in which Greek genius revealed itself in its most typical 
and lasting forms. The terrible Peloponnesian war (431-404) 


316 ART IN GREECE 


did little to detract from this brilliant Attic efflorescence of 
the second half of the 5th century, and work went on in 
Athens in the calmer moments of the peace of Nicias, from 
421 (Erechtheum about 420; the Erechtheum Korai, about 
415) to the Sicilian expedition (415-413). The beautiful 
Victories of the temple of Athena Nike were carved on the 
morrow of the ephemeral successes of Alcibiades in the 
Hellespont (408), and very little before the fall of Athens 
(404). But the spiritual consequences of this war, which 
ruined Greece, are sensible in the art of the 4th century. 


PLATE XVI 


RED-FIGURED CUP. BANQUET SCENE. (Geneva Museum) 
‘Sth Century 


HEAD OF PENELOPE. (Terme Museum, Rome) 
; [ face p. 316 


* y 
} 
' 
* 
: 
: \ 
¢ 
? 
: 
~ 
; 
: 
.; ’ 
Shae 
c : 


CHAPTER V 
THE 4TH CENTURY. BEGINNINGS OF REALISM' 


THE 4th century, heir to a perfect technique and an exact 
knowledge of the problems that in the 5th century were still 
to solve, had the task of introducing subtleties rather than 
innovations. We have seen how in this century attitudes 
became more supple, the raising of one hip having been 
adopted,” and how a still too dry and schematic modelling 
_ had been softened by a more pictorial and picturesque vision 
of anatomy and drapery.° 

But if themes and motifs were unchanged, the spirit 
animating them was quite different. The soul of the artist 
flew less high, and the pure and noble idealism of the 
Parthenon began to flag. The misfortunes of the Pelopon- 
nesian war transformed the Hellenic mentality. The relaxing 
of tradition, the growing incredulity and slackening of religious 
conviction, the invasion of more sensual and emotional 
foreign cults, the increasing luxury, and the individual 
freedom that is always clamant in troublous times to the 
detriment of any common bond, turned men’s minds from 
the serene heights of other days to the agitations of humanity 
and the many fleeting happenings of ordinary daily life. 
The study of man, from every angle and in every possible 
manner, as private individual and not merely as mankind, 
not only in his heroism but in his weakness—this is the 
dominant note of the 4th century. Art now neglects the 
general and pursues the particular character. It was the 
same in society; this was the moment in which the individual 
sought to free himself from the trammels of a collectivity.‘ 

The artist emancipated himself in the 4th century. He 
had no longer at heart the grandeur of the city and the glory 
of his gods; he no longer modestly joined his own efforts to 
those of all the other citizens for the attainment of a common 

1 VI, vol. iii, p. 261. 2 See above, p. 198. 

3 See above, pp. 216, 237. 4 See above, p. 110 ff. 

317 


318 ART IN GREECE 


ideal. He became independent and obedient unto himself 
alone, his preoccupation being now rather to produce personal 
work than to follow tradition. He no longer had the robust 
faith that animated his ancestors of the 5th century and he 
no longer believed himself called to a mission; he ceased to 
seek his aspirations uniquely in the national, patriotic and 
religious life. Man interested him more than the gods, and 
not only heroic man, the combatant who vanquishes bar- 
barians and monsters, or the victorious athlete, but man qua 


man who has accomplished no brilliant act and whose only © 


merit is that he lives, and the artist takes him even from 
the lowest classes of society, whereas for many a long day 
the vase-painters had had a monopoly of such familiar and 
often trivial scenes. 

The art that becomes humanized in this way tends to quit 
the exclusive service of the gods to consecrate itself to that 
of men, and these men it secularizes. Phidias immortalized 
the glory of Athens before all else; Lysippus multiplies 
portraits of Alexander; he becomes, like Apelles and Pyrgo- 
teles, a court artist.+ Though the State no longer undertakes 
the construction of great groups of works in which the soul 
of an entire people is revealed, the luxuriousness of private 
persons increases. Funerary monuments, which become 
more and more sumptuous, and the official offerings which 
abound, testify more to pride than to gratitude towards 
the gods. 

The differences between schools, still so marked in the 
preceding century, tend to become effaced. The masters 
travel about; Scopas works at Tegea and at the Mausoleum 
in Halicarnassus; Praxiteles works at Mantinea as well as 
in Athens, and they make disciples almost everywhere. The 
influence of individual studios is greater; Attic and Pelopon- 
nesian art borrow from one another, and from their union 
issues that eclectic style frequent in 4th-century work. There 
is a movement in the direction of that international character 
in art which was to be the distinctive mark of the Hellenistic 
period. 

The gods come down from the ideal heights and become 
mere mortals. Aphrodite, a chaste and austere goddess in the 
5th century, is now a real woman whose sensuous charm and 

1 See above, p. 111. 


Se ee ay Seer es ee ee ee 


PLATE XVII 


FEMALE HEAD FROM TEGEA 
4th Century 


[ face p. 318 


PLATE XVIII 


HEAD OF TEGEA HERACLES. STYLE OF SCOPAS 


4th Century 


[ face p, 319 


THE FOURTH CENTURY 319 


beauty are exalted, and her erstwhile virile contours are now 
Janguid. The Aphrodite of Cnidus' put off her divine majesty 
with her raiment, and now there is nothing left but a woman’s 
exquisite body. Apollo is a youth who teazes a lizard,” 
and Artemis a young girl fastening her mantle.® Religious 
subjects now border upon genre, which begins to assert 
itself. 

Arrogance now elevates mortals, on the contrary, to the 
level of the gods. Apelles is the first painter to represent 
men in the guise of gods, and Lysippus shows Alexander, 
leaning on his spear, regarding heaven with an air of defiance. 
“The bronze hero,” says the epigram, “raises his eyes to 
Zeus as though to say: ‘the earth is mine; thou, O Zeus, 
mayst reign on Olympus.’”’ Honorific statues are multiplied 
_ —another result of human vanity. 

The dominant and genuinely original note of 4th-century 
art is the search for the accidental and the individual, 
briefly, the evolution of realism out of idealism. ‘‘ Conse- 
quently ” said Socrates, ‘combatants’ eyes should express 
menace, and joy should be read in the countenances of victors? 
Undoubtedly. Then statuary should express in form all the 
impressions of the soul.”* The art of the 5th century, how- 
ever, had avoided this portrayal of the passions and emotions 
that the philosopher commends to the sculptor. But now 
the countenances of gods and mortals lose their superhuman 
serenity. This seeking after expression is one of the con- 
quests of the 4th century: everything, attitude, gesture, 
drapery and countenance, unites in revealing that which 
moves the heart. Two quite distinct expressive tendencies 
appear—the sentimentalism of Praxiteles and the pathos 
of Scopas. Humble predecessors among the 5th-century 
ceramists, and the bronze-worker Pythagoras of Rhegium, a 
realist born before his time,°® had already dimly seen the 
resources of pathos, but it was reserved for Scopas® to lead 
sculpture into the path of violent emotion, to render the 
physical or moral suffering that forces the head back 
(Plate XVIII), and raises the eyes to heaven, and half opens 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 276. 2 Ibid., p. 287. 
3 Ibid., p. 283. 
4 Xenophon’s Recollections of Socrates. 


° CLXIV, p. 126. 6 CLIX, CLXX. 


320 ART IN GREECE 


the lips as though to groan (Tegea heads).! Praxiteles,? 
likewise, mingles with his marble the passion of the soul, 
to repeat the terms of the ancients, but in a different manner 
from Scopas. His ephebi and his gods are lost in a sensuous 
and gentle reverie, with a touch of romantic pensiveness 
about it, and sometimes a slight smile. 

Not a countenance now remains indifferent. That of the 
Demeter of Cnidus,* that antique Mater dolorosa, with her 
gentle sadness, gazes into the distance, as do those of the 
figures on Attic funerary stelz,* whose discreet resignation 
moves us more than any violent pain. Asclepius is a god 
full of compassion and kindliness. Zeus himself, whom 
Phidias had been the first to depict as human and com- 
passionate, becomes yet more gentle, and thoughtful, too. 
Lysippus’ endeavoured to react against the growing invasion 
of sentiment by means of the corporeal beauty of his robust 
athletes, without, however, depriving his Agias of a pensive 
and weary air (Plate XTX). 

Suffering passion, gentle melancholy, sorrowful kindliness 
—these are some of the feelings revealed by the countenances 
sculptured by the great psychological artists of the 4th 
century. After the serenity of the 5th century, this is a 
new note, still timid, it is true, and subtly expressed—a long 
way from the Hellenistic exaggeration. 

Grace and sensugusness also mark this period. Praxiteles 
renders the seductiveness of woman and the sometimes 
ambiguous languor of young people. The Tanagra Koro- 
plastes,° his humble disciples, clothe all their fragile works 
in a delicious grace which avoids Hellenistic mannerism and 
affectation and is still lit by the glow of a dying idealism. 

The artist interests himself in all the accidents that befall 
humanity. He observes the differences between ages, between 
the two sexes, individuals, and races, instead, as in the old 
days, of reducing them all to one common measure. Woman 
acquires her specific characters; children are no longer con- 
ceived as small adults. Portraiture seeks to reproduce exactly 
the individual features; Silanion excels in this, and effigies 
of orators, poets, and illustrious statesmen become frequent. 


1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 239. CLIX, CLXII-III, CLX XII. 


> LXII, vol. ii, p. 362. 4 LXITI-IV. 
° CLX, CLXVIII. S CVII, CX, CVI. 


PLATE XIX : 


HEAD OF THE DELPHI AGIAS BY LYSIPPUS 
4th Century 


[ face p. 320 


PLATE XX 


LOGRAS (AIN) HERMES. (Geneva Museum) 
BRONZE STATUETTE, LYSIPPIAN STYLE 


[ face p. 321 


THE FOURTH CENTURY 321 


Still, the realism of these countenances (Mausolus, Adschines, 
etc.) has not yet the cruel acuity of the Hellenistic period; 
it shuns excess, and it preserves a nobility which is too often 
absent from later portraits. 

This change in ideal corresponds with the social trans- 
formation in art which we have already indicated.’ 

The 4th century is a period of transition from the idealism 
of the 5th century to the precise realism of the Hellenistic 
epoch. It is to this last that it belongs to develop these 
still timid tendencies and to carry them to their most extreme 
limit. 

1 See above, p. 110 ff. 


21 


CHAPTER VI 
THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD. APOGEE OF REALISM?! 


THE monarchies of Alexander and the diadochi transformed 
social conditions, and art felt the inevitable repercussion 
whose effects we have already seen.” 

The political centre of gravity having been displaced in 
an eastward direction in conjunction with the conquests of 
the Macedonian and the brilliant Egyptian, Syrian, and Asia 
Minor empires, art now finds its original forms at Pergamum, 
Tralles, Antioch, Alexandria and Rhodes, where schools come 
into existence. Art flows back again towards the East. 
And once more in contact with it, old qualities, that the 
classicism of continental Greece had curbed, are liberated, 
and link the Hellenists with their Ionian predecessors, and 
through them with the A%geans,’ qualities of realism, the 
feeling for life, love of nature, of the picturesque and of 
movement. Reacting since 500 against the preponderant 
influence of Ionianism and the Orient and accepting the 
teaching that came from the Peloponnese, especially from 
the school at Argos, art, in the 5th century, had been the 
expression of that part of Hellenic genius which was purely 
original and Dorian; now it is once more modified by coming 
back to Asia.* 

Athens loses the artistic supremacy acquired in the course 
of the 5th century, and now plays but a secondary réle, 
although maintaining her fame as an intellectual queen and 
the city of all the arts which foreign princes think themselves 
honoured in embellishing and protecting. Doubtless her 
studios still prospered under Demetrius of Phalerum (817- 
807):° it was then that Protogenes worked at the Bouleu- 
terion, and the architect Philo at the great portico at Eleusis, 
and that the sons of Praxiteles, Cephisodotus and Timachus 


1 VI, vol. iii, p. 311; LXI, LXV, LXIX, XCI. 
2 See above, p. 111. 3 VI, vol. iii, p. 59. 
4 See above, pp. 65, 135 ff. 5 LXII, vol. ii, pp. 442, 613. 


322 


THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD 323 


sustained with honour the reputation of the Attic school. 
It was the last flash of the brilliance of Athens—henceforth 
to live on her glorious past. From the 8rd to the 1st century 
she remained faithful to the traditions of the 5th and 4th 
centuries, especially keeping up the traditions of Phidias 
and Praxiteles, and sometimes of Scopas. But there was no 
more invention, and her artists limited themselves to com- 
bining with greater or lesser felicity the types created by the 
great masters, and to repeating and adapting them. Pro- 
tected by the memory of the great names of Phidias and 
Praxiteles, Athens avoided the exuberant pathos and the 
outré realism of other Hellenistic centres, and preserved up 
to the very end that just sense of proportion and of har- 
monious balance of which she gave proof from the commence- 
ment of her esthetic life. Up to the Ist century a.p. she 
engenders sculptors of greater skill than originality. It is 
these men who, having maintained the tradition, are the 
makers of the Neo-Attic and archaistic renaissance,! who 
bring back into honour the classic models, and propagate in 
Rome the most glorious themes of an older time, going back 
readily right past the 4th century to the archaism of the 5th 
and even of the 6th. 

The artist has at his disposal for making his new aspira- 
tions concrete a highly skilled technique marked with that 
increasing subtlety whose principal traits we have already 
characterized.” He works his materials with a virtuosity 
that is more varied than of old. Sometimes it would seem 
as though, in art as in literature, the conquering of a diffi- 
culty is the artist’s aim, and that he chooses, for the mere 
pleasure of solving them, difficult problems in pose, statics, 
grouping and musculature. 

The characteristic note of the Hellenistic ideal is the 
triumph of the realism that was still timid in the 4th century. 
In every domain there is a passionate desire to see things in 
their most concrete reality. The sciences—geography, 
chronology, mathematics, anatomy, botany, astronomy, 
medicine—become experimental. Philosophy, following Aris- 
totle, takes as its starting-point the particular fact. Historians 
give an individual idea of their heroes, showing the particu- 


1 LXII, p. 643; XCII; Hauser, Die neu attischen Reliefs. 
2 See above, pp. 174, 202, 217, 271. 


324 ART IN GREECE 


larities of their private life. Theophrastus paints characters. 
Psychological analyses are the order of the day. The positive 
fact takes on a singular value in Greek eyes. 

So, too, art is required to give the illusion of reality and 
of life. In one of Herondas’ mimes, two women admire the 
works of art in the temple of Asclepius. One of them ex- 
claims: ‘“‘ Look at this child how he strangles the goose! 
If the marble were not before your eyes you would take your 
oath he was about to speak. Sure enough, the day will come 
when men will end by making the stone itself come to life.” 
‘‘T was within an ace of taking that bunch of grapes,” says 
an epigram in the Anthology, “ deceived by its colouring.” 
This is the same sort of illusion as that which the author of 
another epigram, on Andromeda, would suggest when he 
says of the monster that one could not tell whether it was 
painted on the rock or whether he was really about to come 
up out of the sea. Myron’s heifer and his Ladas seemed to 
be alive. There is here, at all events for the 5th-century 
work, an obvious literary exaggeration, but Hellenistic works 
bear witness to this constant effort to make art the faithful _ 
counterpart of life, and no longer to look upon it as anidealized 
transposition of life. | 

The artist scrutinizes the human body in the manner of 
a scientist,! profits by the new medical studies which are 
making anatomy known with precision, and is interested in 
physiological blemishes. Whereas in the 5th century he 
avoided anything that subtracted from the integrity of the 
ideal human being, he now regards with a curious and an 
instructed eye a body whose development is abnormal, or 
warped by disease, and vacant faces, of which the terra cotta 
statuettes, particularly those from Smyrna, provide numerous 
examples.” 

Pathos, which first appeared in the 4th century with 
Scopas and Praxiteles, remained a little conventional and 
without revealing any clearly defined feelings or running over 
the whole gamut of possibilities. These two masters opened 
up the way, but the Hellenistic artists got the maximum 
effect out of these formulas. Every kind of passion now 
moves the body and is expressed in the face. Whereas in 
the 5th century the head did not attract more attention than 

1 See above, p. 218; VI, vol. iii, p. 415. 2 CXI, p. 95. 


PLATE XXI 


CHEVRIER DIONYSUS. (Geneva Museum) 
4th Century 


[ face p. 324 


PLATE XXII 


4 Ces i ts s 
SONAM 0 


=, 


Ain: 


HELLENISTIC PATHOS. HEAD OF THE LAOCOON 


(Vatican Museum) 


HEAD OF THE GIANT CLYTIUS 


(Pergamum Frieze) 


THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD 325 


the rest of the figure, it now begins to be the most important 
part of it. 

Physical pain causes the giants of the Pergamum frieze,’ 
the Galatian and Persian combatants,” and Laocoon and his 
sons,’ strangled by the serpents, to cry out. It would be 
impossible to push further this pathos that is already theatri- 
cal and that seeks effect rather than sincerity (Plates XXII 
and XXIII). Mental anguish exasperates to the point of 
equalling physical suffering, and the old Centaur, writhing 
under the dart of Eros, has a face as tormented as that of 
Laocoon.* Anger contracts the masks, and the sculptor 
must himself have felt the rage of Ajax, said an author, 
to be able to render it with such intensity. Art and litera- 
ture are penetrated by a dolorous sentimentality of which few 
traces were to be found earlier. Everywhere there is effusive- 
ness and tragic passion. Along with love that is tender or 
sensual there is also the love that is terrible, exasperated by 
disdain, of which Daphnis and Polyphemus die. There are 
sickly pallor, languishing eyes, inexhaustible tears, sighs, and 
bad and troubled dreams. A veil of sadness spreads over the 
face of Hellenistic sculpture. It is the sadness of the 
Pourtalés Apollo,’ grown thin with melancholy in the Castel- 
lani Apollo,® and in the Attis type, sullen and restless in the 
Vienna Zeus, and dejected in the Smyrna terra cottas of the 
Heracles type. Sculpture chooses unhappy and sentimental 
countenances. The very gods have lost their Olympian 
serenity. In the 4th century Athena transpierces Enceladus 
with a conventional smile on her lips, and in the 5th she 
remains calm; but now, in the Scopasian statue at Florence’ 
and in the terra cottas of Asia Minor, she turns heavenwards 
_a face full of woe. Serapis is occasionally a sombre and 
romantic god. The Olympians all seem to be somewhat 
discouraged. Are they conscious, perhaps, of their decrepi- 
tude? Do they feel that they are no longer the ardent 
expression of the popular faith, and does this sadden them ? 
One asks oneself if the art of Greece in her decline, with its 
sceptical and disturbed soul, wanted to represent its gods 
grown old, wearied of the long business of divinity and, 

1 LXII, vol. ii, p. 518. 2 Ibid., p. 500. 3 Ibid., p. 550. 


4 LXXXVIII, Pl. 229. 5 LXII, vol. ii, p. 456. 
6 Ibid., p. 457. 7 LXX, p. 306, Fig. 180. 


326 ART IN GREECE 


having lost their strength, mourning sadly their departed 
powers.1 

The pathos of Scopas led to the exasperation of painful 
passion, both physical and moral; the sentimental tendencies 
of Praxiteles are accentuated in the romantic art of the 
Praxitelidee who, in the Hellenistic period, kept up the Attic 
tradition. In the heads, gentle reverie mingles with sen- 
suousness, the regard is veiled in languor, and all the contours 
are softened as though dissolved in mist. This morbidezza 
and sentimentalism are generally characteristic of the Hel- 
lenistic spirit whose literary equivalent is supplied by 
Alexandrian poetry (Plate XXIV). Passion is not stilled 
even in sleep. Formerly, painting had represented sleeping 
persons, but this theme did not find its way into plastic art 
till the Hellenistic period, when man allowed his body to 
yield to fatigue and no longer sought, as in the classic period, 
to resist and to retain his mastery of himself. Eros, Nymphs, 
Satyrs, fishers and shepherds lie sleeping. Often it is a 
troubled sleep. The Satyr of Naples is sodden with drink; 
one almost seems to hear the more bestial Barberini Faun 
snoring. Hermaphrodite dreams sensual dreams (Plate XXIV), 
and the goddess appears to Endymion; on Ariadne’s face the 
artist paints the sorrow caused by her lover’s defection.2 

All kinds of feelings now appear. Laughter lighting up 
the faces of children, Satyrs and young girls does not appear 
in plastic art until this period. Maternal tenderness causes 
mothers to yearn over their little children: 

Physiognomies are asked to express more than they can 
possibly say. In Euphranor’s Paris, according to Pliny, 
one could recognize at one and the same time the judge of 
the three goddesses, the lover of Helen, and the murderer 
of Achilles. What we see in Niobe’s image is the precise 
moment in which the mother has not quite given up hope 
but, cruelly tried, thinks she may still be able to save the 
last of her children. The Medea theme fascinates the 
imagination. ‘‘ When the hand of Timomachus painted the 
cruel Medea, torn between her jealousy and her maternal love, 
he took infinite pains to characterize these two feelings, one 
of which drives to anger and the other to pity. He knew 
how to render both—look at his work! In the midst of her 

1 VI, vol. iii, p. 354. 2 Ibid., p. 356. 


PLATE XXIII 


HELLENISTIC PATHOS. THE SO-CALLED DYING 
ALEXANDER. (Florence) 


HEAD OF THE PERGAMUM 
APHRODITE. (Berlin) 


[ face p. 326 


LZE ‘d aav{ | 


(92495014) 12H “ALIGOUHdVWUAH ONIdgay IS 


AIXX ALV1d 


THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD 327 


threats she weeps; even while she feels pity she is carried away 
by her passion.” Iphigenia is furious, but the sight of 
Orestes evokes in her the sweet memory of her brother. 
Then we have the Cyclopian lover: ‘“‘ The painter has pre- 
served his savage and terrible aspect; he shakes his locks, 
thick and straight as pine stems; he tries to assume a tender 
expression in conformity with his love, but this love has 
something savage and terrible about it, like the desire of a 
wild beast yielding to nature’s call.’””> The commentators on 
these works may have attributed to the authors intentions 
that were never theirs, but which are quite in accordance 
with Hellenistic taste, going so far as to reconcile in the same 
countenance feelings that are contradictory." 

Realism lends precision to portraiture, and multiplies 
_ images of a truth that is often cruel (example: the so-called 
Seneca portrait).2 Not content with noting the physiognomy 
of their contemporaries, they gave to people who were dead 
and gone expressions that seemed caught from the life; they 
no longer idealized but they conferred on A‘sop his tradi- 
tional hump,* and their Homer has open and sightless eyes 
in a worn and lined face.4* Everyone wants to possess an 
image of himself and of the members of his household. These 
portraits lack speech only, repeat the old authors ad nauseam. 
“See, Cunno,” says Coccale, “that statue of Battale, the 
daughter of Mutes, how life-like she stands! He who does 
not know Battale has but to look upon this image and needs 
not to see her in person.” A portrait is said to be so life- 
like that “the little housedog barked, thinking it saw its 
mistress.”” Physical resemblance was not all they sought; 
it was desired to read in the face the complex feelings of the 
living model. If a woman be honest one should see in her 
the nobility of her soul, her wisdom, and her virtue, as well 
as her charming beauty. ‘It is Sappho herself; one sees in 
her eyes, sparkling with light, the vivacity of her imagination. 
Her firm slim contours bespeak her candour and her sim- 
plicity, and from her face, in which joyousness and thought 
are depicted, one sees that she combines her service of the 
muses with Cytherean pleasures.”’ As for Aristotle, “ the 


1 VI, vol. iii, p. 358. 2 LXII, vol. ii, p. 600. 

$ Helbig-Toutain, Guide dans les musées d’archéologie classique de 
Rome, vol. li, p. 29, No. 756. Villa Albani. 

4 LXII, vol. ii, p. 599. 


328 ART IN GREECE 


bronze even bespeaks the activity of his thought, and he 
looks like a man who is deep in meditation. The slight 
fullness of the cheek reveals the doubt in his mind, whilst 
his eyes show the crowding thoughts that haunt him.” 
Realism in sculptured funerary portraits did not appear 
before the Hellenistic period.1_ But then there was an effort 
to preserve a more personal image of the dead. ‘“ Thy 
mother has placed on thy marble tomb a young girl,” says 
an epigram in the Anthology, “‘ who has thy stature and 
thy beauty, O Thersis, and, dead, thou art such that one 
may still speak to thee.” There is complaint of this too 
speaking likeness which revives the sorrow of those left 
behind. In order to make sure of it, casts taken from the 
dead were resorted to according to a method brought into 
vogue by Lysistratus, the brother of Lysippus, as is testified 
by many funerary effigies (example: terra cotta bust at 
Brussels. ).? 

The 4th-century artist understood better and rendered 
better than his predecessors the charm of children’s bodies, 
but he did not yet care for the child for its own sake and for 
the pleasure of seeing its plump and rounded form, and its 
clumsy and naive gesture; he would bring a child into a 
composition whose interest was centred elsewhere. But now 
the child invades art as he invades literature, and artists 
achieve a correct knowledge of what he is like.2 Boethus, in 
the 2nd century B.c., and his imitators, set babies to quarrelling 
with a goose;* others play at knuckle-bones, run, fish, ride 
on dolphins, and play a hundred pranks. They may be 
immobile, erect in their little shirts, or, tired, they may be 
slumbering. They steal his arms from Heracles. Or they 
run about, carrying their shoes in their hands so as not to 
wear them out. Childhood is now so tenderly appreciated 
that the gods take on the shapes of children. Eros is no 
longer the youth he was in the 5th century, buta plump 
and chubby infant, a Love, who finds his way in everywhere, 
laughing and crying, alone, or escorting other gods and 
mortals. ‘The child has become the favourite motif of artists, 
and everyone knows with what facility of invention the 
koroplastes of Asia Minor, and the painter, treated this 


1 VI, vol. iii, pp. 297, 376. 2 Ibid., pp. 878-379. 
* See above, p. 101. 4 LXITI, vol. ii, p. 603. 


THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD 329 


theme in graceful genre scenes. The infant Heracles is 
more interesting than the labours of Heracles the athlete, 
and artists love to show him from his cradle up wrestling 
with the serpents of Hera. Pan becomes a child, and baby 
Satyrs gambol, and infantine laughter brightens their joyous 
countenances. What charm there is in these plump little 
forms with their big heads, round bellies and dimpled limbs, 
and in the naive clumsiness of their poses ! 

The Hellenistic artists realized that there was monotony 
in rendering the human body in its robust youth alone and 
that even wrinkled age might have an interest of its own.* 
The gaunt face of the so-called Seneca is full of intense intel- 
lectual life. A pedagogue is shown walking with bent back, 
holding in his hand his little pupil’s bag of knuckle-bones 
(Myrina statuette);’ or a peasant woman with skinny bosom 
and withered breasts, her knees bent with years, painfully 
carries a lamb.? They do not shrink from trivialities: Myron 
of Thebes (8rd century) sculps an old woman, whose features 
are hideous in their mock gaiety, lovingly clasping in her 
arms the flagon of wine whose contents have made her drunk.* 

Thus the cycle of human existence, from infancy to age, 
from the cradle to the grave, is followed in its full circle. It 
would seem, too, that the idea of death moved men more 
at this period. Tragic adventures abound in literature; in 
art, funeral scenes take on a mournful character that had 
hitherto been absent, and awaken a sentimental feeling of 
pity. The Ludovisi Galatian, having killed his wife who sinks 
in his arms, stabs himself with his sword, and the two of 
them, united in life, are together in the Beyond.? The 
Galatian child, in the Epigonus® ex voto, fondles its dead 
mother, and this picture of maternal love is calculated to 
bring tears to the eyes of many sensitive folk. On funerary 
stele, the young woman, seated, or stretched on her couch, 
sinks in the arms of her parents and servants. The Pagasze 
stele may be considered the chef-d’ceuvre in this genre. The 
dying woman lies on her couch, her head supported by many 
pillows; the nurse approaches, holding the swaddled infant 
in her arms; at the foot of the couch a man watches with 


1 See above, p. 103; VI, vol. iii, p. 396. 2 CXITI. 
3 LXII, vol. ii, p. 566. 4 Ibid., p. 594. 
5 Ibid., p. 505. 6 Ibid., p. 508. 


330 ART IN GREECE 


profound sadness this young mother dying in childbed. And 
it is here that we see appear the skeleton and the death’s 
head. 

Though industrial art represents at an early date people — 
of other races such as Semites (vase in the Phalerum style)? 
and Negroes (6th century vase, among others the Busiris 
hydria),’ the classical sculpture of the 5th century knows 
nothing of Negroes, and only depicts barbarians such as 
Amazons and Persians in order to illustrate Hellenic victories. 
One would search in vain, too, for the realism with which the 
vase-painters occasionally treat them; their features are 
idealized like those of the Greeks; they are characterized 
alone by their costume and their attributes. The Negro, 
who was never an enemy for the Greeks and who was known 
to them mainly through their commercial relations with 
Africa, is relegated to industrial art in which he decorates 
vessels of perfume; but his ethnic type, easy to seize, is con- 
ventionalized and occasionally caricatured. The Hellenistic 
period aims at ethnographic verity even in so far as to render 
the differences between individuals of the same foreign race. 
The beautiful head of the Cyrene Lybian‘* is that of an indi- 
vidual substituted for the type. Negro youngsters abound, 
and in them the ethnic quality is united with the charm of 
childhood. As wandering musicians they play some instru- 
ment in the squatting attitude of their race; or, as pedlars, 
they doze, sitting on their heels beside their wares; or else, 
their monkey playmate on their shoulder, they are dancing, 
or as little slaves they gravely hold some dish (The Negro 
Boy of Tarragona).? The faces of the Persians (Dying 
Persian’s Head, Terme Museum, Rome; mosaic of the Battle 
of Issus, Naples) have also assumed a perfect realism. But 
the original creation of the Hellenists is the Gaul, the Galatian 
who struck terror into the Greek world and who plays in 
Hellenistic times the rdle of the Persian in the 5th century. 
By celebrating the valour of those whom they have con- 
quered, the Attalids who immortalize them in their ex voto 
at Pergamum and Athens glorify their own courage and call 
men to witness that they, too, have delivered Greece from 


1 VI, vol. iii, p. 880; see above, p. 284. 2 CXLIV, vol. x, p. 667. 


> Ibid., vol. ix, p. 521. ‘ LXII, vol. ii, p. 567. 
5 VI, vol. iii, p. 398. 


‘THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD 331 


the barbarian. The ethnic features of the Gaul, his shaggy 
hair and long moustache, his rude muscles contrasting with 
the supple musculature of the Greek trained in physical 
exercises, are rendered with nuances shading from the sharpest 
naturalism to the most attenuated idealism.' 

From the 4th century onward the artist had given more 
attention than hitherto to animals, and he had begun to 
endow them with an individual life (example, Lysippus). In 
the Hellenistic period,’ circumstances are still more favour- 
able. The progress made in natural science had made the 
shapes and habits of animals better known; the decoration 
of palaces and private houses, parks and gardens, open up 
to this genre new opportunities. What intense life that 
group must have had which was admired by the two gossiping 
women of Herondas’ mime: ‘‘ Look at that bull, and the 
man leading him, and the woman walking behind, and him 
with the button of a nose, and him with the snub. Aren’t 
they all alive—made of real flesh and blood! If it weren’t 
for my womanly reserve I should scream—that bull really 
scares me: look at his eye, Kunno! He is positively glaring 
at me!’ One thinks of the Florentine boar and the Palermo 
ram, extraordinarily accurate works. 

On a lower plane there was still life.’ Epigrams describe 
fruit and various other objects. At Pergamum, Sosus 
executes the asarotos wkos mosaic: there were to be seen 
reliefs of a feast which seemed to have been left lying by 
mistake on the ground. This genre was to develop in Rome: 
Possis modelled fruits which could not be distinguished from 
real fruit, and the Pompeii paintings are full of still life subjects. 

The merit of the Hellenists was to have brought back 
into honour that feeling for nature* that the exclusive cult 
of man had stifled since the Dorian invasion. Scepticism 
had driven out the personifications of nature, and Pan, the 
Nymphs and the Satyrs are become no more than graceful 
allegories. The sciences—geography, astronomy, botany, and 
zoology—made soaring flights. The addition of Asia to the 
Greek patrimony opened up new researches in a vast un- 
explored domain, the sight of which awakened the sentiment 
of the beauties of nature. The refined and complicated 


1 VI, vol. iii, p. 397 ff. 2 Ibid., p. 81. 
3 Ibid., p. 407. 4 Ibid., p. 72. 


332 ART IN GREECE 


1 


civilization of the great Hellenistic cities provoked a reaction 
in favour of the country; people went there to rest an 
recuperate, and parks were laid out in cities, and gardens 
were made for private houses; they took passionately to the 
sport of hunting, which enabled them to find again in the 
calm of the woods the simplicity they had lost. The entire 
literature bears witness to this new love of nature. In art 
the picturesque element, hitherto sporadic and timid, takes a 
larger place; it inspires those groups of metamorphoses into 
tree or plant (Apollo and Daphne, Dionysus and Ampelus), 
and those marine or woodland creatures whose bodies, faces 
and beard are covered with seaweed, with leaves and berries 
(Oceanus, Scylla, etc.). Foliage unites the human and animal 
elements in giants and monsters, and the artist intermingles 
with their scales little acanthus leaves. Combinations of 
animate beings with ornamental foliage are common— 
winged children whose bodies end in leafy branches, busts 
or heads emerging from a collarette. In architecture a 
naturalistic decoration covers the capitals of Asia Minor. 
Picturesque groups are placed in frames of verdure, and in 
‘¢ picturesque ’’! reliefs, funerary reliefs, and painting, blank 
backgrounds are abandoned and are invaded by scenery. 
Hellenistic art has not the simplicity of the classic periods. 
It understands the complexity of life and interests itself in 
everything, taking pains to render the subtle shades and 


differences in physical life that shape the infinite variations 


in the bodies of women and children, the appearances of 
disease and of blemishes, and which make the contrast 
between one race and another. It is no longer limited by the 
old restrictions or the long-lasting predilection for the ephebic 
body. It is interested in intellectual and moral life, and 
the indifferent countenances of older days with their con- 
ventional serenity reflect henceforth all the human feelings 
from the simplest to the most delicate. It is interested in 
social life, and it takes note of the ranks of society and of 
occupational deformations. How much more varied is this 
conception! One seems to hear a great modern symphony 
played by a huge orchestra instead of the sober and straight- 
forward music of the past, which was somewhat thin and 
uniform in tone. 
1 XCI. 


aes 
ae 
je 


THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD 333 


This variety, however, is not accomplished without 
mistakes being made. ‘Taste is less sure than it once was. 
Thanks to the search for the new, to the desire to be original, 
to be sensitive to all the facets of life, the instinct for propor- 
tion and equilibrium of the classic period is somewhat hesitant. 
There is bad taste in the complicated, skilfully built up hair 
of the Myrina terra cottas; there is theatrical emphasis in 
Laocoon, even already in the Pergamum frieze; there is 
mannerism in the gestures, in the exaggeration of a bulbous 
and declamatory anatomy; all so many forms of excess that 
had been unknown hitherto. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE DECLINE. EXHAUSTION OF CREATIVE 
POWERS 


THERE is one theme repeated century after century which 
clearly shows the modification of ideal which we have indi- 
cated. The Boy Plucking a Thorn from his Foot has inspired 
a number of replicas’ until quite late times. In the 5th 
century, when the theme was invented, it was not a genre 
subject but a type of the athletic and religious statue, the 
image of a young victor whose wounded foot did not cause 
him to slacken in the race. The early form was slim and 
dry, somewhat schematized; and gaucheries had not com- 
pletely disappeared because the carefully combed locks did 
not fall, as they should, by their own weight, and the junction 
of thorax and pelvis is still a little reminiscent of the old 
frontal ankylosis. The Rothschild bronze shows a robust 
fellow with expressive physiognomy, knit brows, picturesque 
hair and powerful muscles: here we have the dawning realism 
of the 4th century. Still later, the Priene image-maker’ 
transforms the graceful lad of archaic times into a common 
little street urchin who, barely clothed in a small cloak and 
wearing a cap, makes a pleasing grimace of pain: here we 
get the keen and somewhat trivial realism of the Hellenists 
with its predilection for the lower orders of society and its 
transformation of the grave and religious subjects of olden 
times into genre. 

The funerary group of San Ildefonso,’ the work of an 
eclectic artist of the Ist century A.D., united the formulas 
of three centuries of art. The little idol recalls the 6th 
century: she holds up her drapery with its regular and 
schematic folds in the manner of the Korai. The ephebus 
on the right is an adaptation of the Doryphoros of Polyclitus, 
and that on the left has a thoroughly Praxitelian rhythm; 
one evokes the 5th and the other the 4th century. Finally, 
the altar placed between them is Roman in its taste. If 


1 LXII, vol. i, p. 416. 2 Wiegand, Priene. 3 LXIII, p. 339. 
334 


ae ea 


THE DECLINE 335 


there had but been a Hellenistic motif as well we should 
have had all the schemas of Greek art represented from archaic 
times up to its fusion with the art of Rome. 

The evolution of Greek art may be considered to have 
ceased about the Ist century B.c. To its spiritual and 
technical formative period (6th century) had succeeded the 
time in which the artist, liberated from his last maladroit- 
nesses, realized the ideal dimly perceived hitherto, and of 
which the Parthenon marbles supply the most finished ex- 
pression (5th century). But realism crept in (4th century) 
to triumph in the Hellenistic period. And it could go no 
further. Was inspiration now to renew itself, and still to 
find fresh formulas ? It would not seem so; it would seem 
that this evolution is complete and that art now could only 
oscillate between the two extreme phases of idealism and 
realism which it had passed through successively, now pre- 
ferring one and now the other, and now welcoming both 
simultaneously." 

Creative imagination already showed symptoms of ex- 
haustion with the Hellenists. There was a great deal of 
copying, and of combining together earlier conceptions in 
order to achieve types that were original in appearance; the 
action and pose of one celebrated statue was transposed into 
another subject, and motifs were rejuvenated by treating 
them according to the taste of the day, and invention was 
apparent only in the arrangement of disparate parts. These 
expedients often denote real ingenuity which yet does not 
dissimulate the too frequent reminiscence.” In literature, 
erudition takes the place of imagination; we see the birth of 
the history of art and of art criticism, which likewise bear 
witness to an analogous impoverishment. And thus theory is 
substituted for action, and science for emotion, the memory 
of the past for thoughts of the future and of progress. 

Arrived at this impasse, Greek art turned readily back to 
its past. The Neo-Attics and archaists’ take up again the 
themes and styles of the 6th, 5th, and 4th centuries, and we 
now see all the ideals which succeeded one another from the 
6th century co-existing. In the Rome of the 1st century 
A.D., crowded with Greek works, we can study the develop- 
ment of plastic art from the statues of Bupalus and Athenis 


1 VI, vol. i, p. 318. 2 VI, vol. iii, p. 450. 
3 LXII, vol. ii, pp. 631, 643; XCII,. 


oS 


336 ART IN GREECE 


(6th century) in the temple of the Palatine Apollo built by 
Augustus, up to the most realistic forms of the Hellenistic 
age. And the artists of that day take their inspiration 
indifferently from the one or the other. Art exhausts itself 
in vain repetitions, but it is already Greco-Roman art. 

This evolution is not particular to Greece, since the same 
thing happens in the Christian world whose art follows the 
same course from its beginnings in the medieval age to the 
16th century, and with an analogous rhythm. In both there 
is a formative period, submitting to the same technical con- 
ventions—comprising the 6th century B.c. and the 12th 
century A.D.; idealism dominates both in the 5th and 18th 
centuries; then comes the dawn of realism in the 4th and 
14th centuries whose full harvest is reaped in the Hellenistic 
age and in the Christian 15th and 16th centuries.* 

However original it may have been, and however profound 
its influence, Greek art had in common with the art of other 
periods and lands certain features which are due, not to 
borrowing or filiation, but to spiritual and technical necessities. 
Filiation and borrowing on one hand, coincidences on the 
other, art by contact and spontaneous art—these are the 
two formulas which explain analogies in different lands and 
times.2 So-called influence exerted by Greece is really only 
a spontaneous similitude. To quote but a few instances: 
in pre-Columbian America the presence of the “ Greek” 
fret—though it is a universal ornament—on Peruvian vases, 
certain Maya art motifs, and a creature resembling the classic 
Gorgon on certain objects of the Cuenca treasure, has given 
rise to a suppositional and imaginary communication between 
the old and the new world. One could show by hundreds 
of examples that a large number of material and spiritual 
appearances in Greek art are to be found everywhere, not 
only in its beginnings when it had to obey primitive con- 
ventions that are general, but even later in its most developed 
phases. Greek art loses nothing by such an admission. 
Shorn of anything absolutely unique, the Hellenic artist is no 
longer an exceptional being but a man who, having to submit 
to the same psychological and material necessities as other 
men, nevertheless was capable of realizing more perfectly — 
than they the common ideal because he was more sensitive 
to beauty and more highly gifted in his ability to express it. 

1 VI, vol. iii. 2 VI, vol. ii. 


CONCLUSION 


THE PLACE OF GREEK ART IN THE HISTORY OF 
CIVILIZATION 


In order to realize how original Greek art was we must note 
how it has reacted to the numerous influences exerted on it 
in the course of its history, and how it exerted its own in- 
fluence. To receive, adapt to its own temperament with 
lesser or greater individuality, and then to give out to others, 
is the law of all art. 


I 
WHAT GREECE OWES TO FOREIGN ART 


Greece owes the foreign elements of its art to what it 
inherited at its inception, and to what it borrowed as a result 
of historic contacts, both commercial and political. Outside 
influence was most active in the first stages, at the beginning 
of the 6th century; art was then docile to such influence, 
not yet having become clearly conscious of its ideal, and being 
in course of elaborating its themes and acquiring a technique. 
It was likewise active after the great national period of the 
elassic 5th century, when Greece had once more come into 
regular contact with the East, especially in the Hellenistic 
age, and also towards the end, when creative imagination 
sought to renew itself and when Greek art fused with the 
art of Rome. 

Though a new world may have come into being after the 
Dorian invasion, there was yet no absolute break between 
AXgean civilization and the Hellenic civilization which followed 
it. Subject to the conqueror, the old population of the 
Peloponnese preserved its technical procedures despite the 
regression brought about by the cataclysm and continued to 
produce for the newcomers, who left the manual work they 
themselves despised to this population, and who, as a minority 
caste in a hostile country, retained in their own hands military 

337 22 


338 CONCLUSION 


strength and civil power.’ Certain regions, protected by 
their geographical situation, remained untouched, such as 
mountainous Arcadia, and Attica, separated from the Pelopon- 
nese by the isthmus and saved by the heroism of the legendary 
~Codrus. Fleeing before the invasion, the Ionians, who were 
the descendants of the Augeans, crossed the AXgean Sea and 
established themselves on the Asiatic coast. The Aigean 
tradition was actively maintained by these technical survivals 
in districts which had not felt the invasion, such as Attica 
and Ionia, and was adapted to the Dorian spirit in the 
Peloponnese. Is not Ionian naturalism, contrasting as it 
does with continental schematism, due to this difference in 
origin ?? 

All forms of spiritual, material and artistic activity in 
Greece betoken AXgean survivals. How many Hellenic 
deities have pre-Hellenic ancestors! Such was the Delphic 
Apollo himself, whose sanctuary, the omphalos of the Greek 
world, was raised on the site of the ancient establishments. 
Certain divinities sink from favour and become monsters and 
demons; such were the sacred bull of Crete, who was now 
only the Minotaur; and Theseus, his vanquisher in the 
labyrinth which recalls the palace of Knossos, symbolized 
‘Hellenic Greece which overthrew the Minoan empire; the 
cuttle-fish, whose image, no doubt prophylactic, ornamented 
so many vases and other objects, now became the redoubtable 
Hydra against which Heracles fought. How many were the 
reminiscences in rites and cult objects, even as far afield as 
Italy where the fiddle-shaped shield which decorated the 
Aigean gems and frescoes (Tiryns fresco) persists in the 
sacred ancilia of the Salian priests! Many elements of Greek 
costume, especially the Ionic, and the citharist’s dress, 
originated in the Atgean. The seven-stringed lyre was not 
invented by Terpander because it had already appeared on 
the Haghia Triada sarcophagus. The Hellenic language 
preserved a number of vocables, endings and roots, and 
toponymy in many places was reminiscent of pre-Greek 
settlements. In literature, Homer, who was an Ionian, could 
still trace, at a distance of centuries, a dim picture of this 
vanished world. 

In architecture the so-called ‘‘ Doric”? temple was a 

1 CCXI. 2 See above, pp. 121, 161. 


GREEK ART AND CIVILIZATION — 339 


descendant of the Mycenzan megaron. How many orna- 
mental motifs persisted in the geometric pottery of oriental- 
istic, Ionian, or Corinthian complexion !!— And what is more, 
the old Aigean esthetic had not entirely disappeared. 
Elongated proportions, which lasted for centuries after the 
geometric Greek period, were still inspired by the slim and 
slender figures beloved of the Cretan and Mycenzan artists.” 
These already had a taste for human musculature, which was 
to become almost exclusive in Greece;°® they affected those 
great ritual games in which athletes took part in pugilistic 
and acrobatic exercises and in racing. The direct heir of the 
Aigeans, Ionian art especially preserved an attenuated 
naturalism and a love for plants and animals, movement 
and life, and of the picturesque, features that were very 
different from the continental tendencies brought in by the 
Dorians; this art inspired the rare picturesque velleities that 
are occasionally evident in the full classical period, and it 
was to triumph once more when Greek art flowed back 
towards Asia with the Hellenistic monarchies. Many links 
thus unite the two civilizations; Augean survivals explain 
certain accents in Greek art. 

To this legacy from the past Greece added the influences 
she received from countries with which she had relations. 
Oriental influence was exerted indirectly in all that the 
Aigeans themselves had already borrowed from Egypt, 
Mesopotamia, and the Hittites, and which was transmitted 
to the Hellenes. But it was also exerted directly, during 
the formative period, from the Greek geometric phase to the 
end of the 6th century, and especially in the 7th, so much 
so that the Greek art of that time may be called “ Oriental- 
istic.”* A science that has become more subtly discriminating 
no longer believes in the ‘“‘ Oriental mirage”’ and no longer 
makes out the Hellenes to be the servile imitators of that 
East from which they were supposed to have got everything. 
Truth lies midway between, and the scholar has to discern 
which elements were inherited and borrowed, and which were 
spontaneously Greek. We no longer think of evoking the 
influence of India, once a dogma when that country was 


1 OXLY, vol. ii, pp. 487, 558. 
2 See above, p. 245. 3 See above, p. 206. 
4 CCXII; Karo, AM, xlv, 1920, p. 106. 


340 CONCLUSION 


dimly recognized as the cradle of all civilization. We smile 
when we recall that Burnouf explained the enigmatic 
characters of the Trojan spindle whorls by the old Chinese 
ideographs. One is inclined to think that contemporary 
‘‘pan-Babylonianism ”’ is only a belated form of the old 
Oriental mirage and the expression of a mentality among 
scientific men which refuses to admit similitudes and puts 
everything down to influence. 

Nevertheless one cannot fail to recognize Eastern influence. 
The Greek artist for long sought his technical processes, his 
themes, and his decorative motifs in the East. Geometric 
pottery already betokened such influence, which became 
stronger in the vases of orientalistic style, in the productions 
of Ionian, Rhodian and Corinthian workshops. The decora- 
tion, which covered the vessel like a variegated carpet, was 
imitated from Eastern stuffs; we see the monsters created 
by the fertile imagination of Asia and Egypt fighting upon 
them, and cuneiform characters there become ornament 
(Rhodian vases). 

The scholar determines the share of each of the Oriental 
civilizations in the make-up of Greek art. | 

Mesopotamia gave mythological themes, whose form the 
Greek spirit changes, Ixion on his flaming wheel being the 
solar god of Assyria; ornamental motifs, such as the tress 
which appeared as early as in Elam and which was per- 
petuated up to the time of the barbaric art of the early 
Middle Ages, despite Alexander’s cutting of it in the Gordian 
knot;’ and the cosmic tree, and the Potnia Theron. The 
thickset proportions of the Ionian figures are in imitation 
of Assyrian statuary. The Ionic order borrows the idea of 
the frieze, and the torus of column bases. 

The Hittites supplied their contribution. The Greeks 
took from their religion the legend of the Amazons, which 
they denatured, and the motif of the Chimera, may be, as 
well as many other features. 

Lydia,” semi-Hellenized and mistress of the Ionian cities, 
exerted on them fruitful influence in that she was the agent 
of transmission between coast and interior. 

Ionian art, as a whole, thanks to the privileged topo- 
graphical situation of the Ionian settlements which received 

1 “ Le neeud gordien,”’ REG, 1918, pp. 39, 141. 2 CCXITII. 


GREEK ART AND CIVILIZATION 341 


the products of Anatolia, Cappadocia and the basin of the 
Tigris and Euphrates, by sea and by island caravan routes, 
was penetrated through and through by Asiatic influences, 
and served as the intermediary between Asia and continental 
Greece.! 

Egypt’s share is no less. Her priests justifiably said to 
the Hellenes: “‘ You Greeks are mere children.”’ At the time 
when Greece was first coming into existence, Egypt, indeed, 
had behind her a long past of glorious art which attracted — 
the attention and called forth the admiration of the Greeks. 
But the Greeks had also a more practical interest in the Nile 
valley; their trade was established there, and they founded 
cities at Naucratis and Daphne. Friendly relations were 
established with the phil-Hellene pharaohs, Amasis and 
Psammeticus, and there was continual coming and going of 
men, things and ideas from one shore of the Mediterranean 
to the other. Perhaps the cult of Dionysus and of Demeter 
at Eleusis may have borrowed its elements from that of Isis. 
and Osiris. Were Heracles, and Atlas who supports the 
world, the heirs, perhaps, of Shu holding up the heavens ? 
In architecture the taste for colonnades, characteristic of 
Greek temples, and the use of stone instead of wood—may 
these have been suggested by the sight of the great sanctuaries 
of Egypt? It was there that Rhcecus and Theodorus of 
Samos studied the technique of hollow bronze casting which 
was destined to such a great future in statuary. Was the 
Kouros, with closed fists and the left leg uniformly put 
forward, imitated from the Egyptian pose, or was this only 
an instinctive and universal schema ?* Because, among the 
borrowings that have been so often pointed out and in 
such great numbers, some are certain and some are doubtful, 
the analogy being capable of explanation by spontaneous 
similitudes. 

Among this company of protectors surrounding the cradle 
of Greek art place should be found for the Phoenicians. 
Doubtless the Phoenician like the other Oriental mirages has 
been dissipated; we no longer believe that those hardy 
mariners brought everything to Greece, as was credited prior 


1 CCIX, CCXITI. 
2 Deonna, ‘*‘ L’influence égyptienne sur lattitude du type statuaire 
debout dans l’archaisme grec,” Fesigabe fur O. Blumner, 1914, p. 102. 


342 CONCLUSION 


to the pre-Hellenic discoveries. The Ai%gean thalassocracy 
flourished long before the Phoenician, and it was the Minoans 
who transmitted to the Greeks those elements which once 
were attributed to the Phcenicians, as, for example, writing 
and the alphabet. But after the Aigean shipwreck these 
traffickers were dominant in Mediterranean waters from the 
9th to the 7th centuries at a period when Greece, barely 
emerged from the disturbance following the invasion, was 
constituting her art, and in which they themselves, flung 
back by the Assyrians at the end of the 8th century, turned 
once more towards their western trading bases and wherever 
they had maintained commercial relations in being. They 
served as intermediaries between the East and Greece, 
bringing in with their cargoes a number of ornamental motifs.’ 
Oriental influence declined in measure as Greece made 
progress and asserted her own technique and ideal. Towards 
the end of the 6th century, that useful intermediary, Ionia, 
lost her independence and her artistic preponderance. From 
500 onwards the Greek artist turned his eyes towards the 
Peloponnese and sought his artistic guidance in that direction. 
The tyranny against which Sparta had always struggled was 
finally beaten down in 510—that tyranny which was Asiatic 
in origin and conceived after the pattern of the Lydian, 
Gyges, and which knit close the relations of the peninsula 
with the Oriental monarchs; the Persian war was to break 
these bonds. And then there came a reawakening of national 
sentiment, not only in political matters but in art, which, 
having assimilated the contributions from without, was 
thenceforth to reject all foreign interference. : 
Very little in the way of foreign elements penetrated into 
art during the classic period covered by the 5th and 4th 
centuries. From the 5th century onwards, nevertheless, 
Asia and Thrace introduced the gods of the senses and the 
passions and of the mysteries—Dionysus, Cybele, Atys, 
Bendis, and Sabazius—whose acceptance was brought about 
by the misfortunes of the Peloponnesian war, since they 
promised that comfort for the troubled spirit which the 
official gods could no longer provide. The wild and stirring 
music of the Phrygians effected a change in the calm Grecian 
music. The pathos of 4th-century art may be in some measure 
1 CCXII. 


ee ee ee ee Ces 


GREEK ART AND CIVILIZATION 343 


due to this contribution. Artists of exotic origin, especially 
ceramists, introduced dissonances into 5th-century art such 
as a repugnance to nudity and a predilection for drapery and 
fringes. 

Whenever Greek art set foot on Asiatic soil it became 
modified by the contact. Hellenistic art was the fusion of 
the purely Hellenic spirit with the spirit of Ionia, of the 
Augean, of Asia, and from that moment the old link with the 
East and with Egypt was again renewed. 

Greek art subjected Rome to its own domination; but 
when the ancient world was sinking into decadence the old 
Oriental spirit triumphed; the Graeco-Roman world was 
invaded by the cults and the arts of Persia, Babylonia, Syria 
and Egypt. 

Christian art is a mixture of those two tendencies, Grzeco- 
Roman and Oriental, and we find in every period of this art 
this twofold current, now mingling, now running distinct, for 
example in Byzantium where the Hellenistic tradition exists 
side by side with the Oriental. 

Our modern civilization itself presents this dual aspect, 
Oriental in its religion, Greek and Roman in its science and 
its art. In this art the image of the Crucified is an Oriental 
conception which would have been abhorrent to Greek 
genius; however much pathos it occasionally exhibited, it 
never knew gods who died to save humanity and never 
conceived for them this despised role of slave, this voluntary 
abasement in suffering. But the Greek spirit slowly but 
surely won empire over the Christians, who, at first antagon- 
istic to anthropomorphic images and to the translation of 
this human body into plastic form, gradually disrobed it that 
its musculature might be seen, as, of old, the Hellenic gods 
had had theirs displayed. 

In the earliest days of Greek art, as at its close, the Kast 
stands revealed; it directed the first steps of the artist, and 
inspired him when his creative strength was exhausted and 
when troubled souls, weary of the clear light of Hellenic 
reason, sought a new ideal. 


344 CONCLUSION 


Il 


WHAT GREECE HAS GIVEN TO THE OLD WORLD AND 
THE NEW 


If Greece received much from others, she did not slavishly 
copy from them. There are countries of the ancient world 
whose art docilely followed foreign impulses and whose 
native qualities were not adequate to transform what they 
borrowed into fresh creations of beauty stamped with their 
own individual genius. Such was the art of Cyprus, a reflec- 
tion of the political vicissitudes of the island, incapable of 
doing aught but copy carelessly and clumsily, and without 
a vestige of original imagination, by turns Egyptian, Assyrian, 
and Hellenic. 

With Greece it was quite otherwise. Her native originality 
was such that she transformed all that the foreigner gave her 
so thoroughly as to make of it a new creation. ‘ All that 
we Greeks borrow from the Barbarians we transform and 
make into something more beautiful” (Plato). Egypt might 
supply Greece with the technique of hollow bronze casting, 
but Greece immediately extracted from the process effects 
never dreamed of by the Egyptian artist, who had never 
tried to make large statues by this method and who had 
never realized what freedom of pose could be achieved in 
bronze, or appreciated its artistic possibilities so different 
from those of stone. The sphinx and the bird-soul had their 
meaning and their form modified by their passage into Greek 
art; the human-headed bird became the symbolic Syren 
lamenting over the tomb, and the Aigina sphinx with its 
beautiful Phidian head bears not the remotest resemblance 
to the androcephalous monster of Egypt and Mesopotamia, 
nor even to the Aigean sphinx. When adaptation is im- 
possible and is shocking to good sense and esthetic feeling, 
the borrowed notion is gradually eliminated. Thus dis- 
appeared in the course of time certain archaic motifs such 
as the hippalectryon, the hare-headed man, and the duplex 
beast with a single head. 

Although there was a link with the Aigean world, yet 
it was a new world that arose and revealed sueh fruitful 
promise in its earliest and still naive productions. Greek 


ae 2 
a? 


(2 


GREEK ART AND CIVILIZATION = 345 


art alone got beyond the point reached by its rivals in 
antique lands. The rupture of the frontal convention, the 
knowledge of foreshortening and perspective, the under- 
standing of human beauty and of musculature and drapery, 
of attitudes, rhythm and composition—all these innovations 
were essentially Hellenic, and the artist had to rely on his 
own genius alone in order to realize them. They opened up 
for Greece the way of progress; they enabled her art rapidly 
to dominate the art of all those other lands which had gone 
before or were contemporaneous, and to become a master of 
beauty, unchallenged, even among the ancient peoples them- 
selves, as for us to-day. 

This ascendancy was not a question of time, for pre- 
dominance was not assured to Greece on account of the long 
ages her art had been in existence. How formless were her 
earliest artistic manifestations! The Dipylon idols, the 
funeral scenes traced by the Attic artist of about the 9th 
century on the flanks of the great clay vases—all this betokens 
an art in its infancy and governed by all the conventions 
to which beginners must submit. There is no comparison 
possible with the often beautiful images that the Egyptian 
had been carving for thousands of years, or with those of the 
Chaldzan of Tello, or those of the ANgeans who were the 
immediate predecessors of the Greeks on their own soil, or 
with those that the Assyrian was then creating. 

And yet, starting from these naive attempts, the Greek 
artist was able to surpass in a very short time those whom he 
might consider his masters. ‘Towards the middle of the 5th 
century B.c. he had nothing left to learn. His term of 
artistic education had been completed and he was in posses- 
sion of his technique and of his ideal. How rapid this 
progress had been! How rapid, too, the entire evolution of 
Greece, since it took place within some eight hundred years, 
that is to say from about the 9th to the 1st century B.c.— 
from the primitive barbarism of the “ geometric ” period to 
the time of her exhaustion. If maturity had come quickly, 
decadence was equally rapid. 

Egypt and the Mesopotamian East, on the contrary, 
measure their artistic life in thousands of years. The works 
of the first pharaonic dynasties, and those of Elam and 
Chaldza, are as far advanced as those of many centuries 


346 CONCLUSION 


later. ‘These countries did evolve, and we can no longer 
admit the immobility of Egyptian art. But their evolution 
was of a different order from that of Greece: there is change, 
doubtless, subtle shades of style which alter with the periods, 
but not progress in the ordinary sense of the word, that is 
to say a gradual modification towards something better 
achieved by essays which subsequently succeed. 

Greek art, if it received, had above all given much to the 
world.? 

How is it that, wherever Greek products have gone, Greek 
art has modified age-old native traditions, leading all, from 
one side of the world to the other—Indians and Gallo-Romans 
alike—to the understanding of an ideal so different from 
their own? Was this the result of historical hazard, of cir- 
cumstances external to Greek art? No, it was due to its 
innate qualities, to its amazing esthetic and _ technical 
superiority. 

Its influence was substituted for that of the Atgeans, 
which had extended all over the Mediterranean basin, to 
Egypt, Palestine, Italy and even Spain, and which had 
penetrated, perhaps, even to the Far Hast. Greek art began 
the accomplishment of its civilizing mission when the maritime 
trade of the Ionians, Corinthians and Attics took the products 
of their cities everywhere, initiating barbarian peoples into 
Greek culture, and carrying afar the radiance of Hellenic 
intelligence and the limpid Hellenic idea of beauty. To the 
north the shores of the Black Sea and even of the Sea of 
Azov bear witness to Greek colonization by the fragments of 
Tonian vases found there;* to the south, Egypt opened her 
gates to Greek commerce in the times of Amasis and Psam- 
meticus, and Saite art already bore witness to qualities which 
were not altogether Egyptian but partly Hellenic. In Asia 
Minor, Lycia and Caria called for Greek artists from the 6th 
century, and continued so to do in subsequent centuries. 
It was they who in the 5th and 4th centuries carved the 
magnificent sarcophagi destined for the princes of Sidon, the 
earliest of which, by their anthropoid form, resemble the 


Egyptian mummy cases, and by the faces resemble the Greek — 


statues of the first half of the 5th century.’° It was they, 


' CCOXIV-CCXXIII. 2 CCXX-I. 
3 Hamdy-Bey and Th. Reinach, Une nécropole royale a Sidon, 1892. 


GREEK ART AND CIVILIZATION 347 


doubtless Ionians, who, at the end of the 5th and beginning 
of the 4th centuries, carved the sculptures of the heréon at 
Trysa and of the Nereids’ monument at Xanthus, for the 
benefit of the Lycian dynasts. In Persia the grandiose 
buildings of Darius and Xerxes borrowed Hellenic! elements. 
It was Greek art that was revealed in the Carthage sarco- 
phagi. The East, that had given so much to Greece, now 
received from her in turn and ever more abundantly. 

Ktruria was a province of Ionian art; Rome was hellenized 
indirectly by her and directly by the Greek settlements of 
Magna Grecia and Sicily, before being pacifically conquered 
by her conquest.” 

In Gaul, Greek commerce, starting from Marseilles, passed 
up* the Rhone Valley, leaving here and there numerous 
fragments of vases and figurines, and took into the heart 
of Switzerland, as far as Graechwyl, the beautiful 7th-century 
Ionian bronze vase of the type of the goddess taming the 
deer. Gaulish coins were crude imitations of Massiliot and 
Macedonian coins; the alphabet was introduced by the Greeks 
of Marseilles; fibulee, swords and torques betoken importation 
and imitation. When the Roman conquest took place the 
ground was already prepared, and it was still Greece, under 
the name of Rome, that was dominant, imposing on the 
native artist an anthropomorphic conception of divinity to 
which he had hitherto felt repugnance, no doubt on religious 
‘grounds, and giving Hellenic forms to the old local gods. 

Greek art penetrated everywhere, long before the con- 
quests of Alexander hellenized the whole world—Egypt, 
Syria and Asia®*—and long before Rome, already prepared 
by its antecedents, finally learned its lesson. 

But this influence was exerted still further afield. Greece 
was early linked in close relations with India; it is possible 
that the nude Jain saints, who resemble the old 6th-century 
Kouroi, were imitated from some Greek statue imported 
from Asia Minor. Do not the ivories of the old Artemisium 
of Ephesus recall Buddhist types? The seated Buddha 
himself derives from an Ionian type of which examples are 
to be found in Cyprus, in the terra cottas of Asia Minor, and 
in the Marseilles statues. But this influence which was 


1 Dieulafoy, L’ Art antique de la Perse, 1884-1889. 
> CCXV, CCXIX. 3 CCOXVI-VII. 


348 CONCLUSION 


uncertain hitherto became so decisive in India from Hellenistic 
times as to give rise to that mixed art known as “ Greco- 
Buddhist ” which flourished especially at Gandhara. The 
Buddha took on the appearance of a Greek Apollo; Praxiteles 
contributed the characteristic raised hip of his statues which 
was there exaggerated; Leochares’ Ganymede became Garuda 
carrying off a Nagi; Mara, demon and god of Passion, 
now took the pug features and unkempt beard of a Satyr 
or a Silenus, and now those of Eros. 

The contagion crept gradually to the Far East. In 4th- 
century China we have a winged figure with Hermes’ cap 
carrying a trident and a thyrsus. We get mirrors of Han 
times (A.D. 202) whose vine-leaf ornament is inspired by 
Hellenic prototypes and coincides with the introduction of 
the vine into China at the period when there were relations 
between Alexandria and Canton, and between Persia and 
China. Invented in Greece and mentioned for the first time 


by Aristophanes, the optical lens was transmitted to the. 


Hellenistic East and then passed into China at the beginning 
of the 7th century. 

It would not be possible to enumerate here all the effects 
of the influence of Greek art. Less profound than that of 
science and technics, artistic influence only touches visual 
forms without modifying their thought content. If it gives to 
the divine and mythological beings of India Hellenic raiment 
it does not transform the essence of religion. If, in Gaul, 
the one-time aniconic deities now have the appearance of 
a Mercury, a Mars or a Jupiter they preserve their early 
character and their ancient functions. Christianity itself 
was to maintain the Oriental character of its religion under 
the anthropomorphic forms which were to triumph over its 
hostility to the image. 

Modern art is the direct heir to the art of the Greeks and 
it bears the indelible stamp of it. Breaking with the Greeco- 
Roman paganism it abhorred, Christianity, triumphant, 
wanted to annihilate that which seemed to it the work of 


the devil, but its efforts were in vain, and from the days of — 


the Catacombs it was ever the themes and the craftsmanship 
imposed on Rome by Greece that appeared on the earliest 
sarcophagi, as, for instance, Orpheus amidst animals, or the 
Dionysiaec vine. The Christian’s divinity was to be in- 


te A ee ee Te ee Se oe pe eee 


pit He 3s 


cee aoe oe 


i ee ois fon ~ “ ' - 
Bd) a a as 0 il wt See 


GREEK ART AND CIVILIZATION — 349 


carnated in that human body so extolled by the Greeks, 
and to accept the antique beauty. Contrary to the teachings 
of Scripture, new wine was poured into old skins—-new 
thoughts, in order to win comprehension, were materialized 
in pagan semblance, and, after some twenty centuries have 
elapsed, the spirit of Greece once again regulates our 
esthetic. 

Again and again attempts have been made to tighten the 
bonds that attach us to that spirit, to imitate more closely 
the antique beauty in its Roman and Greek forms. Hence 
those returns to the past in the Middle Ages, in the time of 
Charlemagne and of Frederick II., and hence the inspiration 
of certain statues at Rheims cathedral dating from the 18th 
century. Hence,” _finally, after these abortive efforts, the 
great Renaissance. that erected into a dogma the supremacy 
of the antique art_ “obscured and impaired by Christian work, 
and the necessity to imitate it. The Renaissance brought 
back into honour the cult of the human form, of the long 
prescribed nudity, of esthetic anatomy, and it recommenced 
the study of foreshortening and perspective that the ancients 
had pursued. Later still, there was a return to the antique 
at the close of the 18th century, and in the first half of the 
19th, with David and Ingres in painting, and Canova, Thor- 
waldsen and Pradier in sculpture. 

Contemporary art, desirous of originality at all costs, is 
restless and rudderless. It tries all manners of tentative 
experiments. Some seek renewal in abstract and mathe- 
matical conceptions, and elaborate the already abandoned 
theories of cubism and futurism. Some, the Bolshevists of 
art, reject all and every principle, and realize the absolutely 
arbitrary by “‘ dadaism,’’ which is even more ephemeral. 
Others, hoping to recover a lost naiveté and the freshness of 
vision and imagination withered by a too lengthy classical 
education, take their models from among the African primi- 
tives, the strange civilizations of Oceania or the refined 
ones of the Far East, or, nearer home, in the rudimentary 
art of the naive Breton Calvaries or in the drawings of 
children. Diverse as these experiments may seem to be, 
they all proceed from the same desire—to escape from the 
domination of Greece and Rome, to forget age-old teachings, 
to abandon deliberately all the principles that took so long 


350 CONCLUSION 


in the acquiring that they might be transmitted in turn to 
posterity. One sees artists of the present day giving up correct 
perspective, establishing foreshortenings that are deliberately 
false, neglecting all harmony of proportion, even finding anew 
the frontality of the early days and of the decadence. But 
there are other artists, too, who still keep their eyes on Greece 
the everlasting, who docilely learn in her school, and, while 
retaining their own originality, do not fear to treat the same 
old themes, such, for example, as Bourdelle, whose Heracles 
slaying the birds of Lake Stymphalus has the rude savour 
of the A‘ginetans, or Landowski, who goes so far as to take 
his inspiration from the Homeric and Hesiodic shields. 

How many forms are there in our daily life which we 
inherit from Greece—architecture with Ionic and Doric 
columns and triangular pediments; masks of Phidian style, 
* even on street lamps! Greek art, which educated antiquity 
and the modern world, lives yet. 


Til 
THE GREEK MIRACLE AND GREEK PERFECTION 


In the evolution of ezsthetics Greek art appeared to be 
a phenomenon so peculiar in its beauty that it has readily 
been set down as something in the nature of a prodigy, and 
the “‘ Greek miracle ’’ has become for many people an article 
of faith.1 The word miracle always seems to connote some- 
thing theological, to signify an event outside the laws of 
nature and of humanity, whereas science, on the contrary— 
and the history of art should be conceived scientifically— 
seeks to eliminate the supernatural, and, says Livy, rem 
miraculo eximere. Let us then use this term judiciously. 
Let us remember that there is no such thing as a miracle on 
this earth where all can be explained by causes, and is more 
or less easy to discern. Greek art, the product of human 
activity, cannot escape the laws governing human affairs. 
Doubtless its genius was more than any other instinct with 
the sentiment of beauty and the desire to achieve perfection. 
But these masterpieces did not come into being suddenly in 
some incomprehensible manner like a bolt from the blue; 


1 VI, vol. i, p. 81 ff. 


, “ 4 ‘ \ 
LY SEY ee, On ae haha: eee ae ee — a “To a hhc. ro . 
alae i Ue) NS aed Re Eee oR en es aE ee NE of ONE. Oe eee ee eee Le Oe ee ee Tre ee Oe Re 


SW ge: Sa a a sl ee 


GREEK ART AND CIVILIZATION © 351 


their development was the culmination of long and often 
clumsy attempts, and they appeared in the fulness of time 
like ripened fruit. It is essential to have a knowledge of 
this slow elaboration and of the favourable circumstances 
which permitted the artists to attain to the culminating 
point. “To admire is to understand ” it has often been said. 
We shall admire this great art all the more in that we under- 
stand it the better not only through the esthetic emotion 
it still arouses in us, but through its psychological, social, 
technical, and—in a word—anesthetic factors; we _ shall 
admire it all the more that we see in it a human necessity 
of the most logical order. Miracle, then, let us call it, if 
we mean by that something worthy of admiration, but not 
some phenomenon confronted with which our reason ceases 
to function and we merely contemplate; not some pheno- 
menon unique in history, because there have been other 
‘** miracles,’ that is to say, other moments in which art, 
freed from too particular contingencies, has imposed itself 
on the emotion of all human beings by its characters of 
lasting and universal beauty. Yes, indeed, the Greeks 
achieved a miracle—the miracle of imposing on the world 
their own spiritual and emotive pre-eminence. They 
triumphed in that struggle for existence which is history, 
despite the smallness of their country, despite their own 
paucity of numbers. The past of vast empires is buried for 
centuries, and is only revived very slowly, thanks to the 
efforts of archzeological science. But Greece taught Rome, 
and through Rome the entire modern world, which still 
admires her and recognizes her as the mistress of thought 
and beauty. 

Greek art, it has frequently been said, is perfect, and the 
dogma of ‘‘ Greek perfection ” is a corollary of the precedent 
article of faith.1 This perfection has been vaunted ever 
since the Renaissance. Models that are insurpassable are 
sought in Greece, and in Greece is found “a place where 
perfection exists”? (Renan) and “ perfection is not to be 
achieved except—and always provided the ancients can be 
surpassed—by imitating them” (La Bruyére). The golden 
age of art, the paradise lost for ever by modern decadence !— 
it is still a current belief. The ‘‘ Quarrel of the Ancients 

1 VI, vol. i, p. 81 ff. 


352 CONCLUSION 


and Moderns ”’ goes on for ever, because it sets in opposition 
two spirits, two temperaments to be found in every age 
both in individuals and in society—the one exclusively 
enamoured of the past, the other accepting the present and 
interesting itself in it with face set towards the future. We 
have been moulded by the classic education that almost 
unconsciously imposes on us admiration for the Greeks and 
Romans, and tradition inculeates in us belief in the magic 
virtue of the humanities in a thoroughly modern society 
which has quite other tendencies and aspirations. We are 
often the playthings of an instinctive psychological illusion: 
the past always seems to be more beautiful than the reality, 
and we deck it in the iridescent veil of memory. Let us 
beware of terminology that is too absolute. Atsthetic judg- 
ment is subjective, varying according to time, social environ- 
ment, individuals and races. This Greek perfection has not 
been recognized as such by all peoples, and Far Eastern 
artists, whose esthetic principles are very different, are quite 
unable to admit it. And do not we, modern folk, continually 
modify our judgment of Greek art? That which was 
admired from the Renaissance to the beginning of the 19th 
century, and that which was decreed to be perfect, was the 
work of that last artistic period in Greece when her art had 
grown old and was more concerned with virtuosity than 
sincerity: it was the declamatory emphasis of the Laocoon, 
the coldness of the Apollo Belvedere that were considered 
perfection. Then, when a number of classical monuments 
were unearthed during the discoveries of the 19th century, 
these at first astonished rather than charmed. The Adgina 
marbles, people said, were ‘‘ hyperantique, and that was 
their only merit,” and those of the Parthenon left them 
indifferent. Greek art, in fact, by no means always resembled 
itself from the earliest days to the end, and, as we have seen 
further back, it had various stages emotionally and techni- 
cally. Each of these stages has its own admirable beauties, 
whether the charm of the 6th century, naive and precious at 
the same time, the ideal abstraction of the 5th, the sweetness 
and sensuousness of the 4th, or the penetrating realism of the 
Hellenists. It was beauty that varied according to the 
different tendencies of those who conceived it, just as those 
who now admire it differ in their tendencies. Was every 


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Vs 
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s 
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GREEK ART AND CIVILIZATION 353 


phase of this beauty perfect, or did one particular phase 
realize ‘* Greek perfection ”’ ? 

Let us understand this term “ perfection ’’ relatively to 
the efforts of those who sought it—as a correlation of the 
artist’s ideal with his realization of it—rather than relatively 
to our own modern mentality in its judgment of the past, 
which itself is subject to change. Then we can admit that 
there was a time in Greece when art arrived simultaneously 
at its maximum esthetic, social, spiritual and technical 
development. Perfection in the sense of a perfect adaptation 
of art to the needs, thought, and highest aspirations of the 
Greek people. Perfection in the sense of a technique arrived 
at its maturity, and having broken with the faults of earlier 
days, but which had not yet come to seek a sterile virtuosity. 
Perfection, when art reflected a pure, harmonious, sober and 
sincere taste as far removed from the gaucherie and naiveté 
of its infancy as from the bad taste which sometimes appeared 
among the Hellenists. Perfection, if we mean by that the 
beauty of an art which, being in full possession of its material 
means of expression, still preserves the freshness, the spon- 
taneousness and enthusiasm of youth. All these conditions 
were realized in the 5th century. This 5th-century art seems 
to some a trifle abstract, even cold, lacking in emotion and 
sweetness, deliberately ignoring the variety of human senti- 
ment. But in the evolution of Greece it realized this perfect 
harmony. The centuries that followed were more skilled 
from the technical standpoint, more varied and more subtly 
discriminating, but they no longer possessed that marvellous 
balance of all the conditions called for in a work of art. 
Towards the middle of the 5th century Greek art arrived 
at the plenitude of its development, achieved the glorious 
possession of strength and beauty. It had reached that 
stage of development that the artists depicted in their ephebic 
statues—the age of youth of some twenty summers, strong 
and calm, conscious of its own worth yet modest withal. 

To retain this anthropomorphic comparison of art with an 
individual, we may say that up to the 6th century Greek art 
is in its childhood, growing and learning how to live. In the 
first half of the 5th century it is adolescent, and still a little 
gauche. But from 450 onwards it has just arrived at maturity, 


having ahead of it great projects for the future and full faith 
23 


6 3 


354 CONCLUSION 


that they will be realized. In the 4th century the ideal is 
already somewhat less lofty, more conscious of mundane 


realities, just as a man, towards his fortieth year, has — , 


greater experience and is more given to reflect but is also 
more disillusioned. The Hellenistic age heralds life’s decline, 
when a man understands the complexity of existence but 
has less energy and verve. Old age approaches, creative 
power grows feebler, thought readily turns back to the con- 
templation of a glorious past as a man’s thoughts towards 
memories of his youth, until the time comes when Greek art, 
exhausted, disappears altogether as an independent entity. 
Yet, like the human procreator who dies, the task accom- 
plished has been fruitful, and there is a long posterity left 
in token of it. 


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GREEK ART IN GENERAL 


Brunn, Griechische Kunstgeschichte, 2 vols., 1893-97 .... 
BoLie, Handbuch der Archeologie, I, 1918 ............ 


BURKHARDT, Griechische Kulturgeschichie, 8rd ed., 1909, 
EE OG ee ey ae ne oe a 


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Bret, ari Cheated, 1020... ole cnc nce cins 
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SCENE ol as Fe nae ledd eves ee deetccws 
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GERCKE and NorDEN, Einleitung in die Altertumswissen- 
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OR ET a ae a a Pe a ane ae 


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Von Sauis, Die Kunst der Griechen, 1919; 2nd ed., 1922 


SPRINGER-MICHAELIS, Handbuch der Kunstgeschichie, I, 
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c ARCHITECTURE 


GENERAL. 

ANDERSON -SPIERS, Die Architektur von Griechenland und 
Rom, 1905; In., The Architecture of Greece and Rome, 
a gt caine ye oy cae Oy GY es Ree me 8 

BELL, Hellenic Architecture : Its Genesis and Growth, 1920 

BeEnolt, L’ architecture, I, Antiquité, 1912 .............. 

Brown, Greck Architecture, 1909 2... cccsccccnsasccee 

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lian 22). 4 er i Tee a ee eee 


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356 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


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Griechen, rd.ed., 1910 = 5... «2's < «es ows « ocle 
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und des Islams, 1910... . @.0.4.s ees hs cea eee 
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MARQUAND, Greek Architecture, 1909 (good bibliography) 


Noack, Die Baukunst des Altertums, 1910 ..........6- 
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4 VOIS., 1906-15. ss stsic sco bin « b eo Hates lacie a ; 


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THE TEMPLE. 


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a'g 0 P-Series a 


Doric. 
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eeceoevoveveveeveeeseeewreeeeee ee eee e ee eevee ee 


XXIX 


XXX 


XXXI 
XXXII 
XXXII 


XXXIV 
XXXV 


XXXVI 
XXXVII 


XXXVIII 


XXXIX — 


XL 
XLII 
XLITII 


XLI 
XLIV 


XLV 


XLVI 
XLVII 
XLVIII 
XLIX 


L 


LI 
LII 


ae 
7 . 
* 
% 
+ 
2 
iy" 
& 


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eevoevoevevee eee eee eeeeseeeeeeeevr ee eve ee ee eee @ 


357 


LV bis 


LIV 
LIT! 
LV 


LVII 


LVI 


LVIII 


LIX 
LX 
LXI 


LXII 
LXIII 
LXIV 


LXV 
LXVI 
LXVII 
LXVIII 
LXIX 


LXX 
LXXI 
LXXII 
LXXIII 


LXXIV 
LXXV 
LXXVI 


LXXVII 
LXXVIII 


358 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Lecuat, Au Musée de l Acropole d Athénes, études sur la 
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Vinoasion de Xerxes, 1903 


LERMANN, Aligriechische Plastik, 1907 ..........000. “ak 
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OVERBECKE, Geschichte der griech. Plastik, 2 vols., 1898-94 


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WIEGAND, Die archaische Porosskulptur der Akropolis zu 
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eoeeseeoeevseeeeeseeeeeseeeeee eee 


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COINS 
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GARDNER (P.), A History of Ancient Coinage, 1918 ...... 


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REINACH (Tu.), L’ Histoire par les monnaies, 1902 


GEMS 
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LXXIX 
LXXX 
LXXXI 


LXXXII 
LXXXIII 


LXXXIV 
LXXXV 
LXXXVI 


LXXXVII 
LXXXVIII 


XC 
LXXXIX 


x 
XCI 
XCIII 


XCIV 
XCV 


XCVI 
XCVII 


XCVIII 
XCIX 


C 


cil 
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Pe Ma tee OS ke ed ees 
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eeereeee eevee eveeeeeevereeveereee ee eseeeveeee eee eee 


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359 


CV 


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CVII 


CVIIl 


CIx 
CX 
CXI 
CXII 


CXITI 
CXIV 


CXV 
CXVI 


CXVIT 
CXVIII 
CXIX 
CXX 


CXXI 


CXXII 
CXXITI 


CXXIV 


CXXV 
CXXVI 


CXXVII 
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360 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


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CXXXI 
CXXXII 
CXXXIII 


CXXXIV 
CXXXV 


CXXXVI 
CXXXVII 
CXXXVIUI 


CXXXIX 
CXL 


CXLI 
CXLII 
CXLIII 
CXLIV 
CXLV 
CXLVI 
CXLVII 


CXLVIII 
CXLIX 
CL 


CLI 
CLII 


CLIII 


EN Se re La REY pe eae gy 


a = 


e 
Ce ee eee, SS ee ee eet eae 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BRuNN, Geschichte der griechischen Kiinstler, 2 vols., 2nd 
EPR Mee ar ee Es Whe ated ob vtululéve > a’ baie’ 


Errera, Dictionnaire-répertoire des peintres depuis 
Pantiquité jusqu’d nos jours, 1918 ........0. ccc ceee 


OVERBECK, Die antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der 
bildenden Kunst bei den Griechen, 1868 ...........22- 


THIEME-BECKER, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden 
Kinstiler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart ....... eS 


PRINCIPAL MONOGRAPHS. 


a a OO OTIS TL a a er re 
Smemmmmmncrnr Fmteectey POOF ck ee ee eevee decades 
SN ee i ic eae cceuveyvewns lav’ 
GARDNER (E. A.), Six Greek Sculptors,1910 .......... 
OE. viniclsts vstin olen ccc olée's'g's wielaeed 
OS OS I Ts 1 a 
LEecuat, Pythagoras de Rhegion, 1905 ..........eeeeee 
RE EL egies a) slew @ ain nid. die Rvisle i004 84 wee cams 
— Phidias. L’Acropole d Athénes (s.d.) .....0.0eeee0. 
MAuHLER, Polyklet und seine Schule, 1902 .............. 


Mavicuia, L’aitivita artistica di Lisippo ricostruita su 
Eg oe aa! 0 kg 5 oon ele: Wa vos wieppiainin we 


MIRONE, Mirone d’Eleutera, 1921 .........ccceccceces 
NEUGEBAUER, Studien wiber Skopas, 1913 ............ 
BE RN dis bin wlalv Gee's Sa oxo. s 6 Hse eS 
CLG. 01, Vos sai 4 oie de dle vie et Wie eleluialene oe 


AESTHETIC AND TECHNICAL PROBLEMS 
BLuMNER, Technologie und Terminologie der Gewerbe und 
Kiinste bei den Griechen und Romern, 2nd ed., 1912 .... 
Ruys CARPENTER, The Esthetic Basis of Greek Art, 1921 
Peeeasirine Pecnmik, D140... ee ce te ew eases 


LANGE, Darstellung des Menschen in der dlteren griech- 
aschen Kunst, trans. Mann, 1899 .........eeeeeeeee 


Loewy, Die Naturwiedergabe in der dlteren griechischen 
Kunst, 1900; Ip., The Rendering of Nature in Early 
0 aE bg Oe re EEE tg gy AMER ean, oe 


NEUBERGER, Die Technik des Altertums, 1922 .......... 


PETERSEN, ‘* Rhythmus,” Abhandl. d. kgl. Gesell. d. Wiss. 
zu Gottingen, Phil.-hist. Klasse, XVI, 5,1917 ........ 


Detia Seta, “La genesi dello scorcio nell’arte greca,” 
ene erred. cer Lancet, 1907 . 2.3. ee enor nese eeeee 


MANNERS AND INSTITUTIONS 


STANLEY CASSON, Ancient Greece, 1922 ........eeeeee 


Croiset (M.), La civilisation hellénique, apercu historique, 
EMER 05h. is Ate thse >» RES 2 Role ea Ca Dae ey es a 


361 


CLIV 
CLV 
CLVI 
CLVII 


CLVITII 
CLIX 
CLX 
CLXI 
CLXII 
CLXIII 
CLXIV 
CLXV 
CLXVI 
CLXVII 


CLXVIII 
CLXIX 
CLXX 
CLXXI 
CLXXII 


CLXXIII 
CLXXIV 
CLXXV 


CLXXVI 
CLXXVII 
CLXXVIITI 
CLXXIX 
CLXXX 


CLXXXI 
CLXXXII 


362 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


JarDk, La Gréce antique et la vie grecque, 1915 ..... “aware 


PauLy-Wissowa, Realencyclopaedie, 2nd ed., 1893-1901 
(in course of publication)... 0. 6s. 9. Sess ey eee oe 


SAGLIO-PorTieR, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et 
romaines, 1877-1919 22. fa ss ce eS ae wo ee eee ‘ 


UTILITARIAN ART 


Guotz, Le travail dans la Gréce antique, 1920 .......... 


Gurtraup, La main-d’ cuore industrielle dans Pancienne 
Gréce, 1900 on ac cuc 0.0 ws 5s x sea en bes ns was 5 ane 


PoTTiER, ‘‘ Les origines populaires de Vart,” Gaz. des 
Beaux-Arts, 1907; Comptes rendus Acad. Inscr., 1907 


THE CITY 


CroisEetT (A.), Les démocraties antiques, 1909 .........- 


Guiotz, La cité grecque. Développement des institutions 
(L’ Evolution de V Humanité, No. 14) 2... 02 cee eceeees 


RELIGION 


FARNELL, The Cults of Greek States ........0++eceses 
— Greek Religion and Mythology, 1914 .........eeeee- ‘ 
GRUPPE, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte 


Harrison, Themis : A Study of the Social Origins of the 
Greek Religion, 192 cacao ssi ose ss os cee ene 


Moore, The Religious Thought of the Greeks from Homer to 
the Triumph of Christianity, 1916....2..ceccccsssess 


PETTAZONI, La religione nella Grecia antica sino ad 
Alessandro, 1921 (6. vanes tg eee sew eee sia ed aan 


DE Ripper, L’idée de la mort en Gréce a l Epoque classique, 
LSS6% .. os «ovis are 60 pe oe Oe ee ee asa eee 


RoscueEr, Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mytho- 
logie (in course of publication, begun in 1884) ........ 


DELLA SETA, Religione e arte figurata, 1912 ............ 


SourDILLE, Le génie grec dans la religion (L’ Evolution de 
P ymanité, NO. TA) isaac un cas ee nn ws eins Sinia teeta 


ATHLETICS, NUDITY, COSTUME 


ABRAHAMS, Greek Dréss, 1908 ... 2.554 «0 > 450 4 gene 
Deonna, Les toileties modernes de la Créte minoenne, 1911 
GARDINER, Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals, 1910 .... 
Hevuzey, Histoire du costume antique d’ apres des études sur 


le modéle vivant, 1922 Voi. eae ss ele PPS Ho Ge oe LS 
Woosurn Hype, Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek 
Athletic Art, 192) 04. 5v.s0eawuw ene a5 ea Meee 5% 
KLEE, Zur Geschichte der gymnischen Agonen an grie- 
chischen Fesien, 1918. 0%. <0. 3 sso es a ee ARP, * 
MUGLER, Nacktheit und Entbléssung in der altorientalischen 
und dlieren griechischen Kunst, 1906 .....eeseeeeeees 
ScHROEDER, Der Sport des Altertums, 1921 .......++... 


CLXXXIII 
CLXXXIV 
CLXXXV 


CLXXXVI 
CLXXXVI 
CLXXXVIII 


CLXXXIX 
CXC 


CXCI 
CxXcri 
CXCIII 


CXCIV 
CXCV 
exevi 
CXCVII 


CXCVIII 
CXCIX 


“0 


P 
© s 
We 

2 > 

* 

ie 
Ae 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


REGIONAL ART: INFLUENCES 


Hocartu, Ionia and the East, 1909 .........cececeeee 


Picarp, Ephése et Claros, recherches sur les sanctuaires 
et les cultes del Ionie du nord, 1922 .......ccecccccces 


PottiEeR, Le Probléme de l’art dorien, 1908 .........66. 
PouLsEN, Der Orient und die friihgriechische Kunst, 1912 


“Raver, La Lydie et le monde grec au temps des Mermnades, 
EG cigis fon sine sivlcce yc bebeeenvceny meus 


EXPANSION OF GREEK ART 


Von Bissine, Das Griechentum und seine Weltmission, 
1921.—Ip., Der Anteil der dgyptischen Kunst am 
ereperermen er P OUNET, 1901S fw kk cht cee enesces 


Coin, Rome et la Gréce, de 200 a 146 av. J.-C., 1905 


GreniER, La civilisation romaine (L’Evolution de 
STREPC DOG ET) ny ccc ces raed eens sescuesess 


Dhellénisation du monde antique (by different scholars), 
ee ee ee ee 


ImmiscuH, Das Nachleben der Antike, 1919 .........e0008- 
amare, Cur Preilenic Eerilage, 1921 2.6.2... ccescevces 


JoucuET, L’Impérialisme macédonien et Vhellénisation 
de l Orient (L’ Evolution de V Humanité, No. 15) ...... 


LIVINGSTONE, The Legacy of Greece, 1922 ........eeeeee 
RostowrTzeErrf, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia, 1923 
THompson, Greeks and Barbarians, 1920 ........eeee0- 
ZIELINSKI, Die Antike und wir, 2nd ed., 1921 .......... 


JOURNALS 


Bulletin de correspondance hellénique ....scsceeeceeees 
Revue archéologique .....cceccccvsvccvcccvevscsceees 
BLEDUC GES CLUDES BIECGUES 2... rece nvavvecvercenns 
ouraat oF Hellenic Siudies ......cccccsvoccccvcces 
Mente MEER RTECS CITICLENNICS «6 wc cc ccc c cece ees seves 
American Journal of Archaeology ......cereeeeeeevees 
Mtheniscne Miitheilungen .....ccccccncesscccesscace 
Jahrbuch d. deutsch. Arch. Instituts, Berlin .......... 
ROME selec ne cae tet ence cc ev en eeesenenenes 
Jahreshefte d. arch. Instituts in Wien ....seereeeeeees 
Monuments et mémoires Piol ......cccceeceercveences 
IOUT ONEICHA owe ct cee eee ee reeesnes 
Gazette des Beaurz-Arts ......cccevccccsvccvcccecces 


363 


CCIX 


CCX 
CCxI 
CCXII 


CCXITI 


CCXIV 
COXV 


CCXIX 


CCXVI 
CCOXXIV 
CCXXIT 


CCXVII 
CCOXVIIT 
CCOXX 
CCXXI 
CCOXXIII 


INDEX 


ACHZEANS, 6, 64, 140 

Achilles, 2776 

Acropolis, 7, 8, 9, 21, 54, 58, 56, 
61, 63, 65, 69, 71, 75, 122, 
128 ff., 142, 151-2, 168, 172, 
183, 194, 212-18, 222-3, 
248, 251, 254, 277, 295, 314 

Acropolis Museum, 100, 131, 157, 
173, 183, 188-9, 192, 208, 
214-5, 222, 225, 226, 227, 
232-9, 240, 269, 280 

Acteon, 52 

Atacus and Alacide, 71 

Aigean art, 5, 66, 90, 94, 104, 105, 
126, 127-8, 138, 185, 137, 
140, 144-5, 156, 169, 174, 
176, 179, 206, 220, 241-4, 
275, 278, 280, 281, 289, 
294, 302, 322, 338-9, 342-3, 
344-6 

4Kgean civilization, 121, 126, 127, 
140, 167, 275, 387-9, 141-2, 
344, 346 

AEgeans, 140, 206, 220, 275, 802, 
322, 338-9 

Aigina and the Aiginetans, 17, 70, 
71, 99, 128, 148, 156, 161, 
167, 173, 188, 197, 214, 241, 
253-5, 291, 308, 310, 311, 
344, 352 

Aiginetan School, 157, 194, 208, 
210, 215, 262, 310, 314-5, 
350 

AXolis, 122 

Aéschines, 321 

Aischylus, 79 

Adsop, 124, 327 

Agasias, 187 

Agatharchus of Samos, 171, 267 

Age, old (representation of, in art), 
101 ff., 284, 312, 320, 329 

Ageladas of Argos, 9, 48, 71, 79, 


101, 146, 157, 161, 190, 
246, 310, 315 
Agemo, 139 


Agias, 201, 217, 245, 320 
Agora, 55, 107 
Agoracritus, 137, 315 
Aix Museum, 203 

Ajax, 71, 325 


Akhenaton, 263 

Alczus, 124 

Alcamenes, 96, 160, 161, 248, 262 

Alcibiades, 2, 171, 316 

Alcinous, 538 

Alemeonide, 128, 173 

Alxenor of Naxos, 81, 159 

Alyattes, 125 

Alexander, 66, 77, 111, 268, 300, 
318, 319, 322, 340, 347 

Alexandria, 111, 118, 158, 322, 
348 

Alexandrian poetry (See Poetry) 

Alexandrian School, 76 

Amasis, 94, 124, 152, 341, 346 

Amazons, 57, 72, 82, 106, 163, 
198, 235, 289, 258, 262, 267, 
293, 330, 340 . 

Ammanati, 94 

Amorgus, 124 

Ampelus 332 

Anacreon, 124 

Anatolia, 341 

Anaxagoras, 65 

Anaximander, 124 

Andocides, 94 

Andromeda, 115, 324 

Animal statuary, 184, 280, 331 

Antzus, 81, 85-6 

Antenor, 225, 269 

Anthropomorphism, 275 ff., 305, 
347-8 

Antigonus of Carystus, 242 

Antioch, 76, 111, 157, 283, 322 

Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, 65 

Apelles, 19, 21, 111, 170, 172, 318, 
319 

Aphea, 178, 253, 262 

Aphrodite, 59, 95, 96, 101, 105, 
115, 117, 181, 198, 202, 221, 
223, 224, 225, 228, 233, 
234, 235, 248, 271, 276, 
278, 306, 314, 318-19 

Apollo, 55, 59, 65, 70-1, 82, 86, 
88, 100, 104, 115-6, 128, 
180, 182, 191, 192, 198-200, 
215, 217, 230, 239, 240, 245, 
255, 276-8, 319, 325, 332, 
836, 338, 348, 352 

Apollodorus, 268, 270 


365 


366 


Apoxyomenos, 201, 217, 245 

Arab art, 288 

Arcadia, 338 

Archeology, 27-8, 50, 80, 277, 
339, 341 

Archermus, 125, 186, 159, 186-8, 
232, 241, 289, 310 

Architecture, 15, 16, 23-5, 31-2, 
54-5, 64-7, 75, 129 ff, 141 ff., 
150-5, 167 ff., 243-4, 247, 
258, 259, 261 ff., 279, 289 ff., 
296-7, 302-3, 308-9, 338-40, 
341, 347 

Aregon, 139 

Argive School, 42-3, 76, 101, 134, 
139, 146, 148, 157-8, 192, 
209, 248-4, 246, 247, 270, 
810, 311, 315 

Argos, 148, 156, 310, 311, 315, 322 

Argosy, 257 

Argus, 279 

Ariadne, 326 

Aristarchus, 49 

Aristion, 20, 82 

Aristogeiton, 107 

Aristonautes stele, 170 

Aristophanes, 83-4, 91, 348 

Aristotle, 97, 109, 113, 328-4, 
327-8 

Arsenal of Philo, 24 

Art criticism, 27, 335 

Artemis, 116, 221, 234, 248, 276, 
278, 319 

Asclepius, 60, 88, 320, 324 

Assos, 82, 188, 151, 259 

Assyrian art, 127, 134, 146, 205, 
220, 226, 248, 263, 340, 
343, 345 

Assyrian empire, 6, 57, 340, 342-3 

Athena, 8,16, 58, 56, 58, 61, 638, 
65, 70, 71-2, 75, 77, 83-4, 
105, 110, 128, 182, 134, 135, 
142, 164, 166, 174, 188, 
186-7, 192, 197, 223, 228, 
231, 233, 240, 247, 250, 
253, 255, 256, 257, 259, 
265, 278, 280, 287, 305, 
808, 313-4, 316, 325 

Athenis, 125, 159, 335 

Athens and the Athenians, 10, 11, 
56-7, 71-80, 84, 107-9, 110, 
121-2, 124, 126-8, 130 ff., 
142 ff., 148-9, 150-5, 200-1, 
250, 251, 296, 304, 307, 
314-6, 318, 322-3, 330 

Athens National Museum, 
284 

Atlas, 257-8, 341 


271, 


INDEX 


Attala, 111, 118, 118 

Attalids, 380 

Attalus, 203 

Attica, 121-2, 126, 144, 149, 150-5, 
184, 242, 246, 295, 338 

** Atticism,” 295 ff., 302, 306-7, 
314 

Attics, 121-2, 150-5, 245, 246, 294, 
295, 304, 807, 310, 346 

Attis, 3825 

Atys, 842 ! 

Auriga (at Delphi), 228, 226, 245, 
296 


Babylonian empire, 6, 348 

Bacchiade, 139 

Barbarians, 82, 92, 111, 380, 344 

Barbarini Faun, 326 

Barbarini Girl Runner, 241 

Bathycles of Magnesia, 148 

Bendis, 342 

Berlin Museum, 198, 229, 285, 252 

Bernini, 234 

Black-figure (Vase painting tech- 
nique), 48, 196, 207, 281, 
300, 304, 306 

Blimner, O., 183, 341 

Boethus, 251, 328 

Beeotia, 179, 240, 248, 302 

Boreas, 279 

Borghese Gallery, 218 

Bouleuterion, 322 

Bourdelle, 350 

Bourguet, 131, 183, 250, 262, 296 

Boutmy, 106 

Boy Plucking Thorn from Foot, 
332 

Branchidez, 1389, 197 

Brasidas, 122 

Briareus, 116 

British Museum, 17, 282, 259, 264, 
265, 267 

Bronze (technique), 19, 77, 125, 
127-8, 187-8, 146, 152, 159, 
171, 1738-8, 183, 188, 192, 
245, 246, 294, 296, 298, 308, 
807, 319, 341, 344 

Brussels Museum, 328 

Bryaxis, 18 

Brygus, 94-5, 102, 160, 164, 228, 
227, 232, 233, 264 

Buddha, 66, 347-8 

Bularchus, 125 

Bupalus, 125, 159, 335 

Burnouf, 340 

Byzantine art, 4, 266, 349 

Byzes, 128 


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INDEX 


Cadmus, 264, 

Calamis, 137, 154, 160, 161, 314 

Calipygis Venus, 202 

Callimachus, 182, 187, 154, 160, 
161 

Callon, 79 

Camarina, 248 

Candaulus, 125 

Canons, artistic, 243 ff. 

Canova, 349 

Canton, 348 

Capitol Museum, 286 

Carthage, 347 

Carving, marble (See also under 
Marble), 32-3, 177 

Caryatids, 183,.161, 225, 229, 314 

Casson, S., 121 

Casting, bronze, 32-3, 127, 174, 

. 177, 296, 303, 306, 341, 
344 

Cellini, 95 

Centauromachy, 86, 249, 255, 258, 
293-4 

Centaurs, 57, 72, 85-6, 106, 231, 
240, 250, 279, 289, 293-4, 
325 

. Cephisodotus, 74, 77, 102, 109, 283, 
322 

Ceramics, 35, 47-8, 60-1, 125-7, 135, 
144,148, 151+5, 156, 159-66, 
167-78, 263, 264 ff., 281, 
294-5, 297, 300, 304, 305-7, 
319, 339-40, 343, 345-6 

Cercopes, 257 

Chachrylion, 44, 207, 232, 240 

Chalcis, 144 

Chaldzan art, 134, 205, 220, 226, 
345 

Chares, 222 

Charities, 22'7 

Cheronea, 110 

Chiaroscuro, 
261 ff. 

Chiasmos, 193-5, 203 

Child with Goose, 151 

Children in art, 101 ff, 116-7, 305, 
312, 320, 328-9 

Chinese art, 4, 279, 340, 346, 348, 
352 

Chios, 125, 156, 159, 310 

Christian art, 103, 190, 201, 241, 
285-6, 288, 336, 343, 348-9 

Chryselephantine statues, 10 16, 
19, 33, 174-6, 278 

Chrysothemis, 41 

Cimon of Cleonz, 159, 222 

Clazomenz, 246 

Cleanthes, 139 


171-2, 178, 217, 


367 


Clisthenes, 70 

Clitias, 152 

Cnidus, 20, 96, 115, 183, 171, 221, 
259, 270, 278, 319, 320 

Cochin, 47 

Codrus, 121-2 

Coins, 34-5 

Colossus of Rhodes, and other 
Colossi, 16, 65, 66, 68 

Comedy, 92 

Constantinople Museum, 98, 268 

Cora, 285, 264, 285 

Corcyra, 218, 248 

Corfu, 253 

Corinth and the Corinthians, 48, 
104, 121-2, 126, 182 ff., 139, 
143-5, 148, 150, 152, 154, 
156, 168, 246, 247, 266, 
290, 304, 340, 346 

Corsica, 124 

Cortona, 265 

Cos, 96 

Courby, 294, 300 

Court artists, 111, 318 

Crafts, 58 

Craton, 1389 

Cresilas, 82, 198, 312 

Cretan art, 148, 206, 246, 338 

Cretan palaces, 140 ff., 288, 338-9 

Cretans, 6, 98, 281, 339 

Crete, 121, 1389-40, 179, 338 

Critius, 8, 157, 249, 310 

Croesus, 125 

Crysapha, 82, 189, 148, 222, 285 

Curtius, 114, 124, 183 

Cuttle-fish in art, 338 

Cybele, 342 

Cycladic art, 104, 128, 156, 179, 
208 

Cyclops, 327 

Cypriots, 6 

Cypris, 116 

Cyprus, 173, 175-6, 205, 227, 248, 
344, 347 

Cypselidez, 139 

Cyrene, 125, 156, 330 

Cythera, 121, 203 


Dactylos, 244 
Deedalus, 53 
Dance, the, 92 
Daphne, 341 
Daphne, 332 
Daphnis, 325 
Darius, 78, 347 
Darmesteter, 59 
David, 227, 349 


368 


Death (representation of, in art), 
103, 284 ff. 

Delacroix, 237 

Delos, 9, 10, 55, 65, 69, 117, 130, 
168, 222, 228, 229, 234, 
236, 2388, 265, 269, 277, 
280, 315 

Delphi, 9, 10, 19, 24, 54, 69, 70-1, 
73, 125, 128,.180>8,; 167, 
171, 173, 201, 210, 215-6, 
2238, 226, 228, 229, 232, 
236, 289, 245, 250, 251, 
257, 262, 296, 307, 308, 338 

Demeter, 101, 264, 278, 285, 320, 

wa B41 

Demetrius of Phalerum, 66, 114, 
322 

Demetrius Poliorcetes, 108 

Demosthenes, 21 

Dermys and Citylus, 248, 250 

Diadumenos, the, 44, 87, 
162, 276 

Didymi, 24 

Dieulefoy, 347 

Diodalses, 105 

Diogenes Laértius, 242, 243 

Dion Chrysostom, 60 

Dione, 235 

Dionysia, 92 

Dionysius of Argos, 43, 198, 246 

Dionysus, 53, 59, 74, 88, 92, 95, 
102, 104, 115-6, 198, 202, 
231, 241, 282, 285, 332, 341, 
342, 348 

Dioscuri, 65, 269, 276 

Dipylon, 68, 81, 144, 150-1, 170, 
179, 184, 2038, 208, 227, 
237, 245, 281, 284, 290, 802, 


100, 


345 
Dirce, 251 
Disease, representation of, in art, 
284 
Diskobolos, the, 83-4, 99, 100, 


186, 195, 214, 269, 313 

Diskophoros stele, 99 

Dodona, 69, 223 

Doria Gallery, 198, 234 

Dorians and the Dorian spirit, 
6, 66-8, 109, 121-38, 125, 
126, 182 ff., 189 ff., 167 ff., 
179, 206, 208, 227, 242, 
245, 246, 258, 279, 281, 
289, 295 ff., 299, 302, 305-7, 
322, 331, 337-9, 350 

Doris, 121 

Dorpfeld, 142 

Douris, 83-4, 94, 152, 160, 186, 
227, 244, 249,252 * 


INDEX 


Doryphoros, the, 44, 87, 100, 162, 
166, 194, 214, 216, 241, 244, 
271, 276, 334 

Dragons, 264 

Drama, 92, 259 

Drawing, 182 ff., 196, 207 ff., 
227 ff., 247 ff., 263-4, 265 ff., 
289, 304, 309 

Dryads, 282 


Echelus and Basilia relief, 234 

Egyptian art, 4, 50, 66, 126, 127, 
134, 160, 169, 173-4, 176, 
182-3, 186, 188, 190, 208, 
205, 220, 226, 244, 248, 
261, 363, 279, 288, 285, 288, 
294, 389, 341, 344-6 

Egyptian empire, 6, 322, 339-41, 
243, 346, 347 

Eirene, 74, 102, 283 

Elamite art, 340, 345-6 

Electra (See Orestes) 

Eleusis, 235, 241, 264, 266, 322, 
341 

Eleutherna, 139, 222, 246 

Elgin, Lord, 15 

Enceladus, 186-7, 218, 231, 325 

Endceus, 183 

Endymion, 326 é 

Ephebi, 44, 59, 77, 91, 98 ff., 107, 
157, 162, 187 ff., 194, 195, 
197, 208, 214-6, 221, 229, 
230-1, 235, 240, 241-2, 246, 
250, 269, 276, 280, 281, 287, 
307, 313, 314, 320, 334 

Ephesus, 65, 112, 124, 125, 129- 
30, 286, 347 

Epictetus, 44, 227, 232 

Epidaurus, 132, 168, 177, 228, 262, 
309 

Epigonus, 329 

Equilibrium, 295 ff., 307 

Erasistratus, 218 

Erechtheum, 17, 71, 75, 182, 133, 
142, 161, 168, 177, 192, 
223, 225, 229, 247, 291, 
300, 308, 316 

Ergastike, 278 

Ergotimus, 152 

Eros, 59, 104, 115-7, 196, 202, 248, 
277, 325, 326, 328, 348 

Etruria, 173, 175-6, 205 

Etruscan art, 245, 285, 294, 347 

Eubeea, 121 

Eubouleus, 217, 271 

Euboulides, 109 

Euphranor, 245, 826 


INDEX 


Kuphronius, 7, 85-6, 95, 152, 160, 
164, 186, 282, 244, 249 

EKurhythmy, 243, 308, 308 

Euripedes, 79, 87, 98, 102, 312 

Europa, 239, 252 

Eurymedon, 70 

Kutelidas, 4.1 

EKuthydicus, 77, 222, 241, 269 

Kuthymides, 7, 159 

Kutychides, 283 

Exekias, 44, 152 

Ex votos, 18, 34, 118, 169-71, 180, 
203, 250, 259, 276, 277-8, 
280, 303-5, 308, 329, 330 


Faytim, 265 
Figurines, primitive, 104, 128, 169, 
. 171, 179-80, 184, 208, 208, 

227, 237, 245, 302, 345 

Florence Boxers, 251 

Florence Museum, 825 

Foreshortening, 178, 185 ff., 195 ff., 
249, 267, 304, 345, 349 

Foucher, 201 

Fresco, 10, 19, 20, 380, 170-1, 232, 
263, 338 

Frontal pose (or ‘ Frontality ’’), 
82, 181, 195 ff., 215, 2438, 
247 ff., 251, 804, 345 

Furtwaengler, 167, 177, 310 


Gabii, 221, 278 

Galatz, 118 

Galen, 93, 97-8, 244 

Gallo-Roman art, 346 

Ganosis, 129, 176, 261 

Ganymede, 116 

Gaul, 124-5, 346-8 

Gauls, representations of, 330-1 

Gelon of Syracuse, 71 

Gems, 338 

Geometric style, 56, 68, 81, 144, 
150-1, 169-70, 208, 292, 
302-3, 305, 339-40, 345 

Giants and Gigantomachy, 86, 
134, 2138, 231, 298, 325, 332 

Giotto, 30, 265, 266 

Glaucias the Aiginetan, 53 

Glaucus, 48, 125, 159, 193, 246, 264 

Glotz, 275 

Glyptic art, 33 

Goncourt, 287 

Gordian knot, 340 

Gorgias, 79 

Gorgon, 53, 240, 258, 257, 279, 
336 

Gothic art, 141, 288 

Graechwyl] vase, 125, 347 


369 


Grecia Magna, 139, 307 
Greco-Buddhist art, 348 
Guillaume, 243 
Gusman, 245 

Gyges, 62, 125, 342 


Hades, 88, 264 

Hadrian, 65 

Halicarnassus, 17, 111, 161, 318 
Hamdy Bey, 346 


Harmodius and _ Aristogeiton 
group, 107, 230, 232, 239 
241, 249 


Harpies tomb, 259, 285 

Hauser, 233, 328 

Hebe, 228, 233 

Hecatzeus, 124 

Hecateum, 248 

Hegias, 161, 310 

Hekatompedon, 75, 128, 131, 178, 
186-7, 218, 2538, 308 

Helbig-Toutain, 326 

Helios, 256, 280 ~ 

Hellenistic manners and thought, 
48, 80, 110, 111, 114, 115-6 
154-5, 164, 280, 282, 295 
300, 307, 312, 3815, 318, 
320, 322 ff., 335-6, 389-43, 
352, 392 

Hellenistic poetry, 115-6, 118 

Hellenistic style in art, 42, 59, 66, 
80, 87, 89, 102, 104, 105, 
1138, 116, 118, 127, 1384, 
1387, 154-5, 164, 1774-6, 202- 
4, 207-8, 217-9, 283, 236, 
245, 251, 265, 271, 280, 282, 


294-5, 312, 318; 320-1, 
322 ff., 335-6, 339, 343, 
352 ff. 


Hephesteum, 15, 182 

Hepheestus, 88, 116 

Hera, 74, 221, 222-3, 269, 329 

Heracles, 53, 57, 70, 82, 85-6, 98, 
108, 104, 106, 146, 151, 163, 
195, 214, 215, 218, 252, 
257-8, 277, 280, 287, 293, 
325, 328-9, 338, 341, 350 

Herzeum (Samos), 125 

Herzeum (Selinus), 221 

Herculaneum, 265 

Herculaneum Dancers, 221, 223, 
225, 226, 236 

Hermaphrodites, 115-6, 202, 326 

Hermes, 18, 29, 74, 88, 95, 102, 
104, 131, 160, 198, 200, 
O17. 227,°.229,. 231, 234, 
235, 249, 264, 270, 277, 
285, 348 


24 


370 


Herodotus, 70 

Herondas, 112, 324, 331 

Herophilus, 218 

Hestia Giustiniani, 105, 192, 223, 
225, 226, 229, 236 

Heuzey, 205 

Hieron, 94, 223, 227, 232, 235, 244. 

Hippodamia, 232 

Hittite art, 134, 340 

Hittite empire, 6, 339-40 

Homer, 276, 326, 338 

Hoplitodromus stele, 99, 181, 188, 
241, 252 

Horsemen, artistic representations 
of, 184, 232, 234, 280, 303 

Hunting, sport of, 332 

Hydna, 95, 338 

Hydra, 251-2 

Hymettus, 128 

Hypnus, 285 


Ictinus, 76, 182, 187, 308, 315 


Indeterminateness in figure re- 
presentation, 180-1, 189, 
276-7, 303 

India, 347 


Indian art, 4, 201, 347-8 
Industrial art, 31, 58, 125 ff., 169- 
70, 265, 294, 304, 330 

Ingres, 349 

Inscriptions, 29 

Tolaus, 252 

Tonia, 122-3, 124 ff., 140 ff., 338 

Ionian art, 76-8, 79, 94, 124 ff., 
144 ff., 148-9, 151-5, 156, 
163, 167-8, 170, 173, 184, 
208, 221 ff., 237-8, 242, 
246, 266, 281, 288, 289-90, 
295 ff., 304, 305-7, 308 ff., 
815, 822, 339-40, 343, 347, 
350 

Ionians, 5, 6, 72, 121-3, 124 ff., 
140 ff., 208, 315, 338, 346 

Iphigenia, 327 

Iris, 137, 228 

Iron age, 6 

Isis, cult of, 341 

Isocrates, 49 

Isokephaly, 260 

Isomachus, 291 

Isthmian Games, 92-3 

Italy, 338, 346 

Ixion, 340 


Japanese art, 4, 264, 346, 352 
Jardé, 121 
Jupiter, 348 


INDEX 


Keramikos, 281 

Klein, 95 

Knossos, 128, 179, 206, 288, 338 

Kolzeus, 125 

Kore, Korai, 188, also 8,'77, 87, 105, 
129, 1838, 185, 187, 189, 152, 
162, 178, 177, 180, 189, 
192, 198, 196, 201, 212, 
221, 222 ff., 238-9, 241, 245, 
247, 269, 276, 800, 316, 334 

Kouros, Kouroi, 183, also 42, 48, 
65, 78, 87, 100, 129, 134, 
139, 146, 162, 180-2, 187, 
189, 193, 196, 201, 209, 212, 
221, 227, 288, 246, 276, 


293, 295, 303, 307, 341, 347 © 


Kyniskos, 195 


Labyrinth, 64, 288, 338 

Laconia, 156 

Ladas, Myron’s, 324 

Landowski, 350 

Language, Greek, 338 

Laocoon, 202, 312, 325, 3383, 352 

Lapiths, 57, '72, 86, 106, 231, 250, 
294 

Lechat, 152 

Lemnos, 71, 105, 166 

Leningrad Museum (The Her- 
mitage), 196, 281 

Leochares, 112, 348 

Lesbos, 124 

Lesche, 19, 20, 171 

Lessing, 312 

Leuctra, 90 

Ligourio ephebus, 157, 192, 246 

Literature, Greek, 171, 318, 325, 
332, 338 - 

Livadia, 24 

Livelihood, work for a, 49 

Louvre Museum, 17, 1938, 195, 
200, 229, 245, 266 

Lucian, 96, 174, 2770 

Ludovisi Gallery, 83, 95, 329 

Lusoi, 2238 

Lycius, 164, 301 

Lydia, 124-5, 340, 342 

Lysander, 73 

Lysicrates, 132, 809 

Lysippus, 27, 42, 110, 111, 128, 
158, 163, 174, 201, 207, 217, 
228, 248, 245-7, 270, 271, 
293, 295, 300, 311, 318-20, 
328, 331 

Lysistratus, 207, 328 


Meenads, 115, 201, 234-5, 282 
Magdalenian art, 263 


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INDEX 


Magic, 52, 104 

Magnesia, 17 

Mantegna, 30 

Mantinea, 31 

Mantineus, 18 

Marathon, 57, 67, 70, 73, 75, 78, 
0 


9 

Marble, and Marble technique, 30, 
32-8, 77, 128 ff., 187-8, 
146, 151-2, 173-8, 183, 192, 
270, 294, 298, 296, 302-3, 
306-7, 352 

Mars, 348 

Marsyas, 83-4, 194, 218, 250, 313 

Mausoleum, 111, 134, 161, 224, 
234, 318 

Mausolus, 67, 286, 321 

Maya art, 336 

Meander, 237 

Medea, 116, 326 

Medusa, 279 

Megarians, 253 

Meidias, 199, 233, 267 

Meleager, 271 

Melos, 134 

Mercantile marine, 315, 341-2, 346 

Mercury, 348 

Mesopotamia, 123, 126, 279, 339- 
40, 341, 345 

Mesopotamian art, 50, 160, 188, 
279, 288, 339-40, 344-5 

Metamorphoses, 332 

Micciades, 125, 159 

Michael-Angelo, 94, 96 

Micon, 7, 10, 19, 70, 170-1, 310 

Miletus, 124-6, 156 

Miltiades, 70 

Mimnermus, 124 

Minns, 124 

Minoan art, 5 

Minoan empire, 338, 342 

Minotaur, 338 

Mnesicles, 75-6, 132, 308 

Mobius, 183 

Monsters in art, 278 ff., 382, 340, 
344 

Morbidezza, 270, 326 

Moscophoros, the, 173, 210, 
227 

Mother Goddess, 180 

Music, 80, 92, 313, 338, 342-3 

Mycene, 141- 2, 277 

Mycenean art, 5, 47, 66-7, 126, | 
129, 245, "246, 263, 277 

| 281, 291, 339 

Mycenzan civilization, 140-2, 167, 
244, 297, 339 

Mycenzan vaulted tombs, 66-7 


2138, 


371 


Myrina and Myrina terra cottas, 
54, 115, 116, 169, 202, 233, 
245, 293, 3829, 333 

Myron, 9, 10, 83-4, 99, 128, 160-3, 
174, 186-8, 194, 195, 214, 
243, 250, 269, 280, 301, 310, 
311, 313, 314, 324, 329 

Myth, 53, 57, 116-7, 276, 312, 340 


Naples Museum, 191, 195, 198, 
202, 230, 267, 326, 330 

Narcissus, 198 

Naucratis, 125, 148, 156, 209, 269, 
341 

Navy, 154, 315 

Naxos and the Naxians, 74, 81, 
128, 180, 157 

Negroes, representations of, 330 

Nemean Games, 92 

Neolithic Greece, 104, 179 

Nereids monument, 67, 134, 136, 
228, 233, 296, 347 

Nesiotes, 8, 249, 310 

Neubert, 121 

Nicandra, 222, 229, 269 

Nicias, 109, 316 

Nicosthenes, 44, 94, 245 

Nike (See Victories) 

Niobe, and Niobids, 82, 85, 95, 
228, 251, 284, 326 

Nisyrus, 66 

Nudity, 938-7, 99, 115, 127, 152, 
163-4, 192, 221, 231-3, 278, 
279, 297, 3038, 305, 319, 343 

Number, 2438, 254, 292 

Nymphs, 115, 202, 282, 326, 331 


Oceanus, 382 


CGinomaus, 88, 230, 2382, 254, 280, 


287 


| Oltus, 164, 244 
| Olympeum, 65, 192 
Olympia, 10, 17, 29, 54, 69, 72, 


83-6, 99, 104, 128, 137, 
154, 160, 163-4, 173, 174, 


177, 198, 214, 217, 225, 
230-2, 236, 249, 250, 254-5, 
257- 8, 270, 280, 283, 287, 


291, 301, 308, 314 
Olympiads, 6, 92-3 
Onatas, 79 
' Onesimus, 190, 196, 264 
Orchomenos, 51, 198, 210 


| Orestes, 195, 250, 327 


Oriental art, 257 (See also Chinese, 
Indian, and Mesopotamian 
art) 

Orpheus, 348 


372 


Orsippus, 98 
Orvieto, 266 
Osiris, cult of, 341 


Pzonius of Mende, 72, 96, 136, 
224, 228, 238, 288, 807 

Pagasz, 20, 329 

Painting, 9, 19, 20, 29, 30, 82 ff., 
55-6, 80, 118, 144, 159-64, 
170-8, 261, 265 ff., 281, 294, 
3038, 304-7, 331, 349 

Palaces, 140 ff., 277 ff. 

Paleolithic art, 266 

Palakastro, 241 

Palatine Museum, 208 

Palestine, 346 

Pampheeus, 44 

Pan, 57, 87, 277, 279, 282, 329, 331 

Panainus, 170-1, 310 

Panathenea, 57, 64, 81, 92-3, 99, 
100, 104, 131, 134, 162-3, 
198, 215, 221, 259, 268, 
278, 287, 314 

Parce, 137, 224, 228, 235 

Paris, Euphranor’s, 326 

Paros, 128, 187, 173, 315 

Parrhasius, 10, 19, 21, 35, 49, 170, 
270 

Parthenon, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 54, 
565° 57; 65.) 70,91, 75. 86, 
96, 128, 131 ff., 187, 161, 
167, 178, 214, 221, 224, 228, 
230-3, 256, 258, 262, 267, 
270, 278, 280, 291, 292, 
293, 296, 306, 308, 312, 314 
315, 317 ff., 352 

Pasiteles, 41 

Pausanias, 15, 19, 20, 28 

Peithinus, 198, 244, , 

Peloponnese, 121- 3, 189 ff., 149, 
246, 296, 307, 315, 322, 
337-8, 342 

Peloponnesian School, 76, 78, 99, 
101, 126, 128, 135-6, 143-7, 
148-9, 151-5, 156-7, 163, 
221 ff., 287, 296, 306, 310, 
311, 318 

Peloponnesian wars, 11, 70, 74, 
79-80, 110, 116, 122, hb gs? 
201, 315-6, 317, 342 

Peloponnesians, 139 ff. 

Pelops, 83, 232, 280, 287 

Penelope, 284 

Pentelicus, 128, 173 

Pergamum, 55, 66, 70,87, £11, tia, 

117-8, 134, 157, 2038, 218, 

233, 236, 295, 300, 322, 
325, 330, 331, 333 


> 


INDEX 


Pericles, 10, 28, 49, 58, 61, 68, 65, 
71, 75-6, 107-9, 128, 154, 
802-3, 312, 313, 314-5 

Perrault, 226, 263 

Perseus, 115, 146, 151, 257, 295, 
307 

Persia and the Persians, 8, 70, 
108, 118, 124, 830, 348, 
347, 348 

Persian wars, 7, 9, 56-7, 69-71, 
73-80, 109, 150, 277-8, 307, 
315, 342 

Personification in art, 283-6, 331 

Perspective, 178, 245, 261 ff., 289, 
304, 345, 349 

Petrograd Museum (See Lenin- 
grad) 

Phestos, 179 

Pherecydes of Samos, 124 

Phidias, 9, 10, 15, 17, 18, 21, 43, 
48, 49, 53-4, 56, 59, 61, 
63, 65, 71, 76, 88, 92, 105, 
109, 110, 181, 187, 1538-5, 
157-8, 160-4, 166, 174, 192, 
214, 215-6, 228, 280-8, 2438, 
245-7, 256, 258, 262, 267, 
268, 270, 271, 290, 295, 
300, 310-1, 314, 315, 317, 
320, 328, 344, 350 

Phidippus, 191 

Phigalia, 76, 182, 184, 154, 168, 
233, 239, 259, 308-9, 315 

Philo (the architect), 24, 322 

Philoctetes, 198 

Philosophy, 323-4 

Phintias, 186 — 

Phocion, 109, 229 

Phocis, 124 

Phocylides, 124 

Phoenicians, 6, 126, 341-2, 347 — 

Photography, 188 

Phrygians, 342 

Phrynicus, 78 

Pinacotheca, 20 

Pisistratide, 60, 62, 75-6, '79, 128, 
131, 152, 173, 186- cr se 
253, 308, 315 

Pistoxenus, 103 

Plagiarism, artistic, 44 

Platza, 65, '70-1, '78 

Plato, 84, 98, 109, 118, 312, 344 

Pliny, 28, 96, 192, 248, 326 

Plutarch, 108, 268 

Plutus, 74, 102, 283 

Poetry, Alexandrian, 326 

Pointing, 177 

Pollux, 245 

Polycharmus, 105 


INDEX 


Polychromy, 10, 34, 129, 
175-6, 261 ff., 303 

Polyclitus, 9, 10, 42, 43, 48, 76, 
82, 87, 99, 100, 110, 128, 
146-7, 154, 157-8, 160-4, 
166, 174, 192, 1938-5, 198, 
201, 207, 208, 214-6, 2385, 
241, 243-7, 265, 270, 276, 
296, 300, 307, 310-1, 314-5, 
334 

Polyclitus the Younger, 309 

Polyeidus, 264 

Polygnotus, 7, 10, 19, 21, 187, 
170-1, 227, 282, 256, 267, 
290, 310 

Polymedes of Argos, 42, 438, 78, 
134, 139, 146, 238, 246, 
295, 315 

Polyphemus, 325 

Pompeii, 25, 80, 35, 191, 265, 331 

Portraiture, 320 

Poseidon, 56, 72, 88, 174, 215, 

256 

Possis, 331 

Potnia Theron, Asiatic, 125, 340 

Pottier, 48, 149, 152, 196, 264, 

m 297 

Poulsen, 285 

Pradier, 349 

Presus, 189, 248 

Praxidamas, 99 

Praxiteles, 11, 18, 19, 59, 74, 80, 
88, 96, 102, 115, 187, 1538, 
155, 158, 160-4, 173, 187, 
198-201, 207, 217, 224, 281, 
234, 243, 245-7, 270, 271, 
278, 300, 311, 314, 318-20, 
322, 323, 324, 326, 334, 348 

Priene, 55, 117, 384 

Prinias, 139 

Profile, Greek, 42, 85-6, 158, 311 

Propylea, 20, 71, 75, 128, 131-2, 
176, 247, 291, 296, 308 

Protagoras, 275 

Protogenes, 108, 172, 322 

Protomés, 33 

Prud’hon, 271 

Psammetichus, 124, 341, 346 

Pseliumene, 278 

Pygmalion, 55 

Pylades (See Orestes) 

Pyrgoteles, 111, 318 

Pythagoras of Rhegium, 42, 99, 
161-4, 174, 186-7, 194, 198, 
216, 242, 248, 245, 301, 
810, 319 

Pythagoras of Samos, 124 

Pythian Games, 92 


135, 


373 


Red-figure (Vase painting tech- 
nique), 48, 196, 264 ff., 281, 
300, 304 

Reinach, Th., 346 

Religion, 51-61, 182, 278-9, 317, 
341, 343, 348 

Renaissance, the, 12, 23, 94, 206, 
246, 349 

Renan, 29, 148, 351 

Rhexibius of Opunte, 99 

Rhodes, 58, 65, 66, 108, 121, 125, 
148, 145, 148, 156, 157,209, 
295, 300, 322, 340 

Rheecus, 127, 159, 174, 248, 341 

Robert, Carl, 20 

Rodenwaldt, 142 

Rodin, 262, 269 

Roman and Greco-Roman art, 12, 
27, 438, 59, 102, 182, 134, 
155, 176, 191, 204, 233-4, 
239, 245, 246, 251, 256, 265, 
268, 286, 294, 3800, 384, 
336, 337, 348, 347, 349 

Romanesque art, 190, 201, 245, 285 

Rome, 57, 175, 328, 335-6, 343, 
B47, 351 


Sabazius, 342 

Sacred Way, 73 

Sacrilege, 54 

Saint-Saéns, 118 

Salamis, 70, '71, 74 

Samos, 94, 124-7, 1389, 156, 174, 
183, 222-3, 234, 267, 269 

Sapho, 124, 327 

Sardes, 61 

Sartiaux, 1383 

Satyrs, 81, 838-6, 102, 108, 2t5, 
137, 175, 198-200, 202, 231, 
241, 279, 326, 329, 331, 348 

Science, Greek, 3381, 335 

Scopas, 19, 80, 111, 187, 158, 160, 
161, 170, 201, 217, 245, 270, 
300, 318-20, 323, 324, 325, 
326 

Sculpture, 9, 16-19, 25, 26, 29, 
32, 34 ff., 55, 75, 77, 80, 
99 ff., 127 ff., 145 ff., 148, 
151-5, 156-8, 159-64, 169- 
78, 179 ff., 207 ff., 220 ff., 
238 ff., 261, 268 ff., 298 ff., 
300-1, 302, 304-7, 310 ff., 
325-38, 340, 349 

Scylla, 332 

Selene, 256, 280 

Selinus, 65, 78, 185, 139, 146, 151, 
192, 221, 289, 257-8, 295, 
805, 307 


374 


Semites, representations of, 330 

Seneca, 329 

Serapis, 175, 325 

** Serenity,” Greek, 312 ff. 

Sfumato, 271 

Shu, 341 

Sicily and the Sicilians, 65, 71, 
139, 148, 151, 184, 307, 
316, 347 

Sicyon and the Sicyonians, 139, 
156, 229, 289, 242, 252, 
257 

Sicyonian School, 146, 157, 245, 
247 

Sidon, 346 

Silanion, 320 

Sileni, 81, 83-6, 92, 218, 249, 279, 
313, 348 

Simonides of Amorgus, 124 

Siphnus and the Siphnians, 131, 
1338, 308 

Skeletons in art (See Death) 

Skiagraphy, 268 

Smikythus, 193 

Smile, archaic, 85, 135, 306, 309, 
312, 314 

Smith, 264 

Smyrna, 66, 124, 324, 325 

Socrates, 21, 46, 49, 90-1, 108-9, 
118, 212, 282, 319 

Soldering iron (invention of), 159 

Solon, 23, 49, 84 

Sophocles, 21, 79 

Sosandra, 137, 314 

Sosus, 331 

Sotades, 264 

Spain, 124, 346 

Sparta and the Spartans, 49, 62, 
72-3, 77, 96, 106, 110, 139, 
148, 269, 315, 342 

Sphinxes, 262, 279, 344 

Spinario, the, 241 

Stendhal, 48 

Stephanus, 195 

Sterope, 232 

Stoa peekile, 20, 70 

Strong, Mrs. Eugenie, 268 

Stuccos, 245 

Styppax, 164, 301 

Susa, 263 

Symmetria, 44, 178, 237 ff., 248 
254-6, 289 ff. 

Synoikismos, 72 

Syrens, 279, 284, 344, 


Taine, 105 
Tanagra, 54, 65, 169, 201, 224 
234, 285, 248, 298, 820 


INDEX 


| Tarsus, 98 


Tegea, 17, 111, 1389, 161, 217, 222, 
228, 318, 320 

Teos, 124 

Telamon, 71 

Telephus, 134, 233 

Tenea, 1384, 181 

Terme Museum, Rome, 98, 330 

Terpander, 124, 338 

Texts, literary, 29, 140, 159 

Thalassocracy, Aigean, 341-2 

Thales, 124 

Thanatus, 285 

Thasos, 19, 58, 187 

Theagenes, 53 

Theatre, 92 

Theatre décor, 267-8 

Thebes, 77, 90 

Theocosmus of Megara, 175 

Theocritus, 112 

Theodorus of Samos, 125, 127, 159, 
174, 2438, 341 

Theophrastus, 324 

Thermopyle, 78 

Thermos, 20, 168, 171 

Theseum, 15, 28, 24, 182, 1384, 
233, 259, 308 

Theseus, 57, 70, 72, 104, 106, 277, 
280, 293, 338 

Thessalians, 250 

Theuer, 142 

Thorwaldsen, 349 

Thucydides, 49, 98, 107-9, 122 

Timachus, 322 

Timomachus, 326 

Tiryns, 141-2, 277, 338 

Titans, 81 

Tolstoy, 81 

Tombs, Aigean vaulted, 66 (See 
also Mycenzan ditto) 

Tralles, 133, 225, 229, 268, 314, 
322 

Triptolemus, 235 

Triton, 82, 213, 240, 251 

Tritopator, 251, 254 

Troilus, 264 

Trojans, 57, 70, 72, 106, 294, 326 

Troy, 70, 140, 142, 277, 340 

Trysa, 184, 1386, 283, 296, 347 

Tyche, 2838 

Typhon, 151 | 

Tyrannicides, 8, 107, 187, 194, 
213, 216, 280, 282, 239, 
241, 249, 250 

Tyrtzus, 106 


Vase Painting, 29, 47-8, 56, 58, 
60-1, 99 ff., 185 ff., 189, 1438, 


Oe ee at eT ee Re ee nee 


INDEX 


145 ff., 148-9, 150-5, 159-64, 
170-8, 179, 185-6, 196, 203, 
223, 227, 230-5, 240, 244-5, 
246, 259, 263 ff., 281-2, 284, 
287, 288, 289, 291, 293-4, 
297, 299-301, 3802, 304-7, 
311, 314, 318, 340, 345-6 

Vatican Museum, 229, 284 

Venice Museum, 203 

Venus, Esquiline, 95, 105 

Vespasian, 82 

Victories (statues), 56, 72-3, 75,77, 
96, 128, 132, 134, 136-7, 142, 
159, 186-8, 223, 224, 228, 
232, 233, 241, 245, 247, 259, 
283, 289, 307, 310, 316 

Victory, Wingless, 17 

Vienna Museum, 228, 325 

Vinci, da, 271 

Volume, 271 

Vourva and Velanidezza tombs, 67 


Wall-painting, 137, 170-1 
Weller, 142 


375 


Wiegand, 334 

Willamowitz-Moellendorf, 187 

Winckelmann, 226, 312 

Woman in art, 104, 115, 186, 187-8, 
146, 163-4, 201, 221 ff., 305, 
307, 312, 318-9, 320 

Woman, cult of, 114 

Wood-carving, 269-70, 302 


Xanthus, 67, 186, 228, 233, 347 

Xenocrates, 27, 242 

Xenophanes of Colophon, 124 

Xenophon, 46-7, 91, 97, 100-1, 212, 
291, 319 

Xerxes, 7, 278, 347 

Xoanon, 278 


Zeus, 17, 24, 56, 59, 65, 72, 87, 88, 
95,110, 163-4, 178, 174, 221, 
230, 232, 250, 255, 256, 
267, 280, 320, 325 
Zeuxis, 10, 19, 21, 35, 49, 170, 
270 


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Fifty volumes are now available 


THE HISTORY OF 
CIVILIZATION. 


A COMPLETE HISTORY OF MANKIND FROM 
PREHISTORIC TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY 
IN NUMEROUS VOLUMES DESIGNED 
TO FORM A COMPLETE 
LIBRARY OF SOCIAL 
EVOLUTION 


| Edited by 
C. K. OGDEN 


of Magdalene College, Cambridge 


Published by 


KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd. 
BROADWAY HOUSE: 68-74, CARTER LANE, LONDON 
1930 


THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION 


HIS series marks one of the most ambitious adventures in the 
annals of book publishing. Its aim is to present in accessible 
form the results of modern research throughout the whole 
range of the Social Sciences—to summarize in one comprehensive 
synthesis the most recent findings of historians, anthropologists, 
archeologists, sociologists, and all conscientious students of civilization. 
To achieve success in this stupendous undertaking, the new French 
series, L’Evalutson de ? Humanité, in which the leading savants of France 
are collaborating with the Director of the Bibliothéque de Synthése 
Historique, M. Henri Berr, is being incorporated. Distinguished 
historians, both European and American, are contributing volumes in 
their several departments. 

The field has been carefully mapped out, as regards both subjects 
and periods ; and, though the instalments will be published as they are 
ready, the necessary chronological sequence will be secured by the 
fact that the volumes of the French collection will be used as a nucleus. 
Each work will be entirely independent and complete in itself, but 
the volumes in a given group will be found to supplement one another 
when considered in relation to a particular subject or period. 


The volumes are uniformly bound 1n a fine art-cambric cloth, with 
specially designed gold lettering and emblem, royal octavo in size. 

THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT devoted a leading 
article to the first four volumes, in which the series was described as 
being “‘ composed by all the talents ”. 

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN wrote that “ it is an heroic 
attempt, which will be sympathetically watched, to bring some light into 
the vast mass of ill-organized knowledge which we owe to modern research 
and so make it available in the end for the guidance of the world.” 

_ NATURE, the leading scientific journal, in a six-column review, 
provides a striking summary of the aims and objects of the series: “ The 
History of Civilization promises to be perhaps the most important 
contribution so far undertaken towards the task of organization and 
systematization of the social studies. A glance at the prospectus makes 
us anticipate a library of masterpieces, for the best workers of France, 
Great Britain, and some other countries are contributing from their 
own speciality and are attempting to bring it into line with the con- 
tributions from neighbouring fields and with the results of general 


3 


sociology. Including all the volumes of the important French collection, 
L’Evolution de ? Humanité, the English library contains additions and 
improvements which will place it above its continental counterpart. 
The volumes already issued bear out our best hopes.” 


The following plan, comprising just under one hundred titles, though not 
definitive, will serve to convey a general notion of the nature and scope of 
the enterprise :* 


A. PRE-HISTORY AND ANTIQUITY 


I Intrropuction anv Pre-Hisrory 


*Social Organization W. H.R. Rivers 
The Earth Before History Edmond Perrier 
Prehistoric Man Facques de Morgan 

*Life and Work in Prehistoric Times G. Renard 

*The Dawn of European Civilization V. Gordon Childe 
Language: a Linguistic Introduction to History J. Vendryes 
A Geographical Introduction to History L. Febvre 
Race and History E. Pittard 

*The Aryans V. Gordon Childe 
From Tribe to Empire A. Moret and G. Davy 

“Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times A. R. Burns 

*Woman’s Place in Simple Societies F. L. Myres 

*Cycles in History JF. L. Myres 

*The Diffusion of Culture G. Elliot Smith 

II Tue Earty Empires | 

The Nile and Egyptian Civilization A. Moret 
The Mesopotamian Civilization L. Delaporte 
The Agean Civilization G. Glotz 

III Greece 
* The Formation of the Greek People 4. Fardé 

*Ancient Greece at Work G. Glotz 
The Religious Thought of Greece C. Sourdille 
Art in Greece W. Deonna and A. de Ridder 
Greek Thought and the Scientific Spirit L. Robin 
The Greek City and its Institutions G. Glotz 
Macedonian Imperialism P. Fouguet 

IV Rome 
Primitive Italy and Roman Imperialism Léon Homo 
The Roman Spirit in Religion, Thought, and Art 4. Grenier 
Roman Political Institutions Léon Homo 
Rome the Law-Giver F Declareuil 
Economic Life of the Ancient World 7. Toutain 


* An asterisk denotes that the volume does not form part of the French collection 
L’ Evolution de l’ Humanité. 


4 \ 


The Roman World Victor Chapot 


*Ancient Rome at Work Paul Louis 
The Celts H. Hubert 
V_ Bryonp tHe Roman Empire 
Germany and the Roman Empire H. Hubert 
Ancient Persia and Iranian Civilization Clement Huart 
The Civilization of China M. Granet 
The Religion of China M. Granet 
*Feudal Japan G. F. Hudson 
*A Thousand Years of the Tartars E. H. Parker 
*Nomads of the European Steppe G. F. Hudson 
India (Ed.) S. Lévt 
*The Heroic Age of India N. K. Sidhanta 
*Caste and Race in India G. S. Ghurye 
*The Life of Buddha as Legend and History E. H. Thomas 
*The History of Buddhism E. H. Thomas 


B. CHRISTIANITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES 


I Tue Oricins or CHRISTIANITY 


Israel and Judaism A. Lods 
Jesus and the Birth of Christianity C. Gutgnebert 
The Formation of the Church C. Guignebert 
The Advance of Christianity C. Guignebert 
*History and Literature of Christianity P. de Labriolle 
Il Tue Break-up oF THE EMPIRE 
The End of the Ancient World F. Lot 
The Eastern Empire C. Diehl 
Charlemagne L. Halphen 
The Collapse of the Carlovingian Empire F. Lot 
The Origins of the Slavs (Ed.) P. Boyer 
*Popular Life in the East Roman Empire Norman Baynes 
*The Northern Invaders B. S. Phillpotts 
III Rexrcious ImMpPERraism 
Islam and Mahomet E. Doutté 
The Advance of Islam L. Barrau-Dthigo 
Christendom and the Crusades P. Alphandéry 
The Organization of the Church R. Genestal 
IV Tue Art or tHe Mippie Aczs 
The Art of the Middle Ages P. Lorquet 
*The Papacy and the Arts E. Strong 


V ReconstiruTion or Monarcnic Power 
The Foundation of Modern Monarchies C. Petit-Dutaillis 
The Growth of Public Administration E. Meynial 
The Organization of Law E. Meyntal 


VI. Socrat anp Economic Evo.utTion 


The Development of Rural and Town Life G. Bourgin — 
Maritime Trade and the Merchant Gilds P. Botssonnade 
*The Court of Burgundy Otto Cartellieri 
*Life and Work in Medieval Europe P. Botssonnade 
*The Life of Women in Medieval Times Etleen Power 


*Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages (Ed.) A. P. Newton 
*Chivalry and its Historical Significance  (Ed.) Edgar Prestage 


VII Intevtitectuat Evotution 


Education in the Middle Ages G. Huisman 
Philosophy in the Middle Ages E. Bréhter 
Science in the Middle Ages Abel Rey and P. Boutroux 
VIII From tHe Mippie Aces ro Mopern Times 
Nations of Western and Central Europe P. Lorquet 
Russians, Byzantines, and Mongols (Ed.) P. Boyer 
The Birth of the Book G. Renaudet 
*The Grandeur and Decline of Spain C Hughes Hartmann 
*The Influence of Scandinavia on England M. E. Seaton 
*The Philosophy of Capitalism T. E. Gregory 
*The Prelude to the Machine Age = Mrs. Bertrand Russell 


*Life and Work in Modern Europe G. Renard and G. Weulersse 

“London Life in the Eighteenth Century MM. Dorothy George 

*China and Europe in the Eighteenth Century A. Reichwein 
A spectal group of volumes will be devoted to 


(1) Susject Histories 


*The History of Medicine C. G. Cumstan 
*The History of Witchcraft Montague Summers 
*The Geography of Witchcraft Montague Summers 
*The History of Money T. E. Gregory 
*The History of Taste F. Isaac 
*The History of Oriental Literature E. Powys Mathers 
*The History of Music Cecil Gray 
(2) Hisrorrcan ETHNOLOGY 
*The Ethnology of Africa L. H. Dudley Buxton 
*The Peoples of Asia L.H. Dudley Buxton 
“The Threshold of the Pacific C. E. Fox 
*The South American Indians Rafael Karsten 
*The American Indian Frontier F. G. Macleod 
*The Ethnology of India -T. C. Hodson 


In the Sections devoted to MODERN HISTORY the pce! of titles 


will be announced later. 


6 


VOLUMES PUBLISHED 


The following volumes have already been issued. They are arranged 
roughly in the order in which they were published. But their place in the 
scheme of the whole series may be discovered from the list above : 


THE EARTH BEFORE HISTORY: Man’s Origin and the 
Origin of Life 

By EDMOND PERRIER, late Hon. Director of the Natural History 
Museum of France. 

With 4 maps, 1s. net. 

“It goes back to the birth of the world and the transformations of land and 
water, and takes us through the growth of life on the planet, the primitive 
animal forms, the peopling of the seas, and the forms of life in the primary, 
secondary, and tertiary periods, to the growth of the human form. Thus, start- 
ing from the origin of matter, it leads us in easy stages to homo sapiens himself.” 


Daily News. 
“A remarkable volume.”—Yorkshire Post. 


PREHISTORIC MAN: 4 General Outline of Prehistory 

By JACQUES DE MORGAN, late Director of Antiquities in Egypi. 

With 190 illustrations and maps, 12s. 6d. net. 

** A notable and eminently readable study in the early history of civilization, 
and one well worth its place in the great series now being issued by the publishers. 
It bears on every page the impress of the personality of its author, who strives 
to give the reader a clear, composite picture of early civilization taking one topic 
after another.”—WNaztion. 

“A masterly summary of our present knowledge at a low price. As a full 


survey the book has no rival, and its value is enhanced by the lavish illustrations.” 
New Leader. 


=, 


SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 


By W. H. R. RIVERS, LL.D., F.R.S. Preface by PRrorsssor G. 
Exuiot SMITH. 
Second edition, ros. 6d net. 

* Social Organization is the first volume of the series of historical works on the 
whole range of human activity. May the present book be of good augury for the 
rest! To maintain so high a standard of originality and thoroughness will be 
no easy task.””—]ANE Harrison, in Nation. | 

The book is a great contribution to the sum of human knowledge in the 
region of pure sociology.”—Daily News. 


7 


THE THRESHOLD OF THE PACIFIC: an Account of 


the Social Organization, Magic, and Religion of the People 
of San Cristoval in the Solomon Islands 


By C. E. FOX, Lirr.D. Preface by Prorrssor G. Ettiot Situ. 
With 14 plates and 40 text illustrations, 18s. net. _ 


‘A masterpiece. One of the very best contributions to ethnology we possess. 

It has, besides its intrinsic value as a masterly record of savage life, also an in- 

direct one ; it is a remarkable testimony to the indispensable need of scientific 

method for the observer. His account of magical ritual and spells will become 

a classical source for students. ‘The account of the life-history of the individual 

is depicted with a clearness and fulness unrivalled in ethnographic literature 
” Times Literary Supplement. 


LANGUAGE: a Linguistic Introduction to History 


By J. VENDRYES, Professor in the University of Paris. 
16s. net. 


‘A book remarkable for its erudition and equally remarkable for originality 
and independence of thought.”—Sunday Times. 

“As an introduction to philology this volume is a splendid piece of haute 
vulgarisation, for which anyone who at all loves words or who is at all curious 
about language, must be grateful. It covers nearly all the ground from every 
useful angle. A wide, level-headed and erudite study.”—Nation. 


A GEOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY 


By LUCIEN FEBVRE, Professor in the University of Strasburg. 
With 7 maps, 16s. net. 


“A masterpiece of criticism, as witty as it is well-informed, and teeming with 

nice observations and delicate turns of argument and phrase.” 
Times Literary Supplement. 

“A broad, clear-headed introduction to the fascinating study of human 
geography. It is much more than a text-book for the student: it is a work 
that anyone with no knowledge of geography can read with avidity, for it is the 
greatest of pleasures to watch the clear logical thought of the writer rapidly 
treating with masterly power these great and important topics.”—Nation. 


THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF 
CHRISTIANITY : from Tertullian to Boethius 
By PIERRE DE LABRIOLLE, Professor of Literature at the 
University of Poitiers. Foreword by Carpinau Gasquet. 
25s. net. 


“‘A masterly volume. A scholar of the finest accomplishment, an enthusiast 
for his subject, and himself an artist in letters, he has produced a book compre- 
hensive and authoritative, and also a joy to read from the first page to the last.” 

Universe, 
“ This interesting and valuable book.”—W. L. Courtney, in Daily Telegraph. 


8 


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LONDON LIFE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
By M. DOROTHY GEORGE. 
Second impression. With 8 plates, 21s. net. 


“Mrs. George, by her cumulative method, imparts a shuddering impression 
of the brutalised life led by the masses under the first two Georges. Her work 
is full of eloquent detail. All who like to get at close quarters with history will 
feel immensely debtors to her industrious research and faculty of clear statement. 
And she will have the satisfaction of restoring faith to many minds in the reality 
of progress.” —Observer. 

“One of the best pieces of research in social and economic history which 
have appeared for many years.” —WNation. 


A THOUSAND YEARS OF THE TARTARS 


By E. H. PARKER, Professor of Chinese in the Victoria University 
of Manchester. 


With § illustrations and maps, 12s. 6d. net. 


* Professor Parker takes us back to a period roughly contemporaneous with 
that of the foundation of the Roman empire, and shows their history to be, like 
that of the Northern barbarians and Rome, a constant struggle with China. 
With an unfamiliar subject the book is not an easy one to read, but the author 
has done all that was possible to enliven his subject and has certainly succeeded 
in giving us a most valuable text-book.” —Saturday Review. 


CHINA AND EUROPE: their Intellectual and Artistic 
Relations in the Eighteenth Century 
By ADOLPH REICHWEIN. 
With 24 plates, 12s. 6d. net. 


“« Among the volumes of the monumental History of Civilization, this study 
of the influence of Chinese art and thought on the European art and thought 
of the eighteenth century will find not the least popular and distinguished place. 
The chapter headed ‘ Rococo’ will be of especial interest to connoisseurs. 

The illustrations are numerous and beautiful.”—Sunday Times. 

“« A fascinating subject. The references to literature are admirably full and 

complete.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


THE DAWN OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION 
By V. GORDON CHILDE, B.Lirr. : 
Second Impression. With 198 illustrations and 4 maps, 16s. net. 


“ Higher praise of Mr. Childe’s book, which forms a volume of the monu- 
mental History of Civilization could scarcely be given than to say that it isin all 
respects worthy of the volumes which preceded it.” —Sunday Times. 

“‘ He has done a very great service to learning, and given a clear and reliable 
outline of the earliest civilization of Europe. His book ‘ fills a gap ’ indeed.” 
—Nation. 

“ A very fine piece of work.”—Manchester Guardian. 


9 


MESOPOTAMIA: the Babylonian and Assyrian Civili- 


Zation 
By L. DELAPORTE, Professor in the Catholic Institute of Paris. 
With 60 illustrations and maps, 16s. net. 


“This book is for the most part very good. The author has handled his 
difficult material cleverly. Where he succeeds is in his admirably written 
description of the social life, of which he makes a fascinating story. Here is 
presented an entertaining picture of theinhabitantsin 2000 B.c. ‘Then fromthe 
earlier Babylonians he passes to the Assyrians, dealing with them in a similar 
excellent way. This is one of the best books of its kind which we have seen for 
some time.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


THE AEGEAN CIVILIZATION 
By G. GLOTZ, Professor of Greek History in the University of Paris 
With 4 plates, 87 text illustrations, and 3 maps, 16s. net. 


“ This is a marvellous summary, divided into four books, describing in detail 
the material, social, religious, artistic and intellectual life of the people. Every 
one of these sections is full of interesting and new knowledge. A wonderful 
book, thoroughly scholarly and attractive in presentation.”—Birmingham Post. 

“Reads like a romance . . . presents a very vivid picture of this 
marvellous civilization.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


THE PEOPLES OF ASIA 


By L. H. DUDLEY BUXTON, M.A., F.8.A., Lecturer in Physical 
Anthropology in the University of Oxford 


With 8 plates, 12s. 6d. net. 


“‘ Although the physical characters of the principal racial strains are described 
in some detail, the author keeps before his readers the bearing of these data upon 
the broader problems of racial distribution, as well as the intensely interesting 
question of the interaction of race, environment, and modification by contact 
due to migration. The exposition of anthropological method given in an 
introductory chapter is admirably lucid.”—Manchester Guardian. 


RACE AND HISTORY: an Ethnological Introduction to 
History 

By E. PITTARD, Professor of Anthropology in the University of 
Geneva. 

Second Impression. With g illustrations and maps, 21s. net. 

A companion to Febvre’s Geographical Introduction to History, which 
estimated the value of “ environment ” as a factor in history, while the present 
volume considers the “racial” factor. ‘ No one is better qualified to compose 
a thoroughly level-headed treatise on the subject of race. For the peoples 
who occupy a conspicuous place in history, and especially the peoples of Europe, 
no better guide could be found.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


Io 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE, from the 

Fifth to the Fifteenth Century 

By P. BOISSONNADE, Professor in the University of Pottiers. 
Translated with an Introduction by E1xeren Power, D.Lit. 

With 8 plates, 16s. net. 

“‘ His work is so interesting that it is to be hoped he will follow Sir James 
Frazer’s admirable example and take each chapter in turn for the purpose of 
converting its highly concentrated essence of history into a more ample dish for 


scholars. His subject is attractive and his pages are eminently readable by 
laymen.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


“There is no book in English which gives so clear and comprehensive a view 
of the labour question all through the Middle Ages. Readers will find no single 
volume so useful and so readable as this.” —G. G. Coutton, in Observer. 


LIFE AND WORK IN MODERN EUROPE, from the 
Fifteenth to the Kighteenth Century 
By G. RENARD, Professor at the College of France, and G. 
WEULERSSE, Professor at the Lycée Carnot. Introduction by E1LEEN 
Power, D. Lit., Reader 1n Economic History in the University of London. 
With 8 plates, 16s. net. 
“This can certainly be pronounced a most useful book. There is nothing 
that covers anything like the same ground; indeed, there is actually no book in 
English which even pretends to give an outline of European economic history 


as awhole. It is interestingly written, and is a storehouse of valuable informa- 
tion.” —New Statesman. 


TRAVEL AND TRAVELLERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 


Edited by A. P. NEWTON, Rhodes Professor of Impertal History in 
the University of London. 

With 8 plates and maps, 12s. 6d. net. 

“This work is no mere collection of stray essays, but in some respects the 
most important contribution to the history of medieval travel since Professor 
Beazley’s Dawn of Modern Geography and the new edition of Yule’s Cathay. 
Me We have said enough to indicate that this work is one which should 
appeal both to the general reader and to the scholar. The illustrations are 
good.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


CHIVALRY: Its Historical Significance and Civilizing Influence 

Edited by EDGAR PRESTAGE, Camiens Professor in the 
University of London. 

With 24 full-page plates, 15s. net. 

“ This is an excellent book, at once learned and entertaining, a valuable 
addition to our painfully limited library of medieval studies. ‘The book is worth 
having, and there is an abundance of beautiful illustrations.” —Daily News. 

“ An equally interesting and beautiful volume, a piece of work which appeals 
alike to the general reader and to the specialist in history.” —Journal of Education. 


II 


ANCIENT GREECE AT WORK: an Economic History of 
Greece from the Homeric Period to the Roman Conquest 


By G. GLOTZ, Professor of Greek History in the University of Paris. 
With 4g illustrations, 16s. net. 

“This is a learned but thoroughly interesting description of farming, 
industry, and business in general in ancient Greece, and should interest the 
student of economics as well as the classical scholar, since it shows practices 
developing from their simplest form. Besides giving hard economic facts the 
author makes interesting remarks on the Greek attitude to slaves, to foreigners, 
and to labour. This is a very readable and unusual book.”—Spectator. 

“A really fascinating economic history of the Greek people.”—New Leader. 


THE FORMATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE 


By A. JARDE, Professor of History at the Lycée Lakanal. 
With 7 maps, 16s. net. 

“One reader at least will tell the world he has enjoyed the book, has 
profited by it, and is not yet done with it ; he means to ase it again, and mean- 
while ventures to tell others interested that this is a book for them.” Nation. 

“He has given his readers an analysis of the course of events in the various 
City states in their external relations inter se and with other peoples, of their 
political, social, and intellectual development, of Hellenic expansion and of 
Hellenic unity, which is little short of brilliant.”—Nature. 


THE ARYANS: a Study of Indo-European Origins 


By V. GORDON CHILDE, B.L1tt. 

With 8 plates, 28 text illustrations, and a map, Ios. 6d. net. 

“ Mr. Childe has followed up his interesting book, The Dawn of European 
Civilization, with another archxological study not less scholarly and sound. 
By a joint use of philological deduction and archxological induction, he contrives 
a thoroughly scientific handling of the problem.”—Times Literary Supplement. 

“Here is a book that must be of perennial interest, for it covers the whole 
field to the time of writing, and is precisely what a work dealing with problems 
of enormous intricacy should be.”—New Statesman. 


FROM TRIBE TO EMPIRE: Social Organization among the 


Primitives and in the Anctent East 


By A. MORET,, Professor in the University of Parts, and G. DAVY, 
of the University of Dijon. 

With 47 illustrations and 7 maps, 16s. net. 

“The object of the authors of this valuable addition to the series is to 
demonstrate how Empires grew from the primitive totemistic clan. Leaving 
M. Davy’s excited, learned, and highly controversial dissertation on primitive 
society for M. Moret’s calm review of the history of the Ancient East is like 
passing from storm into quiet. M. Moret’s story remains the most lucid and 
satisfactory general survey of the Ancient East that has yet appeared. It is the 
very romance of history, and he would be dull indeed who did not find recreation 
and delight in these stirring pages.” —New Statesman. 


12 


THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE, from the time of the 
Pharaohs to the end of the Eighteenth Century 
By C. G. CUMSTON, M.D. 
With 24 plates, 16s. net. 

“ Will be an invaluable source of reference to those who wisely remain students 
all their days. Beginning with the first dynasty of the Pharaohs, the ideas and 
the personalities of medicine are described in a manner which compels wonder 
for the amount of literary research, thought, and time which must have been 
devoted to its construction.”—British Medical Fournal. 

“The book should be as interesting to the general public as to the 
doctors.”—Sunday Times. 


THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT AND 
DEMONOLOGY 


By MONTAGUE SUMMERS, editor of Congreve, Wycherley, ete. 
With 8 full-page plates, 12s. 6d. net. 

“ Mr. Summers has just the literary style to do justice to the stewing of 
witches’ broth or the licentious dancing of the Sabbat. This book is one of the 
most masterly products of psychological-historical literature; and one feels 
that the editor of this learned series was perfectly justified in including in it 
such a storehouse of facts. _ Mr. Summers has our hearty thanks. His book is 
enthralling.” —Ouztlook. 

** No more learned, no more copiously documented work on the subject has 
seen the light for a long while.”— Birmingham Post. 


THE GEOGRAPHY OF WITCHCRAFT 


By MONTAGUE SUMMERS. 

With 8 full-page plates, 21s. net. 

“The History described the general characteristics of European witchcraft 
in the middle ages; the present volume gives particulars of actual witches in 
the various countries of Western Europe. Mr. Summers includes within the 
scope of his exceedingly painstaking work all the varieties of the black art, from 
cattle laming to the concoction of love philtres, to demoniac possession and 
unnatural vice. The book is beautifully produced and contains some excellent 
illustrations.” —Spectator. 


THE CIVILIZATION OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN 
INDIANS, with special reference to Magic and Religion 


By RAFAEL KARSTEN, Ph. D., Professor at the University of 
Finland, Helsingfors. Preface by Proressorn E. WEsTERMARCK. 

25s. net. 

‘A very solid piece of work. . . Whether Professor Karsten be right or 
wrong in his contentions, his book can be read with the utmost profit, because 
he cites the evidence fully and fairly.” —Times Literary Supplement. 

“ Dr. Karsten can congratulate himself on having written a work that will 
form not merely a contribution to the ethnology of South America, but also a 
valuable addition to the small number of really useful works on the ideas of the 
less cultured peoples.”—Saturday Review. 


13 


PRIMITIVE ITALY, and the Beginnings of Roman 


Imperialism 


By LEON HOMO, Professor in the University of Lyons. 
With 13 maps and plans, 16s. net. 


“This able and scholarly work, which has summoned to its aid all the resources 
of anthropology, archeology, epigraphy and philology. Here is laid bare the real 
history of Rome’s origins, and especially of her Etruscan origins. A volume 
characterized alike by scientific caution and a marked power of lucid recon- 
struction.” —Spectator. 

““ He gives us a spirited account of the development of Rome from her obscure 
origins to her establishment as the dominant power of the Mediterranean world. 
It would be hard to find a clearer or better proportioned account of the stages 
by which Rome achieved the miracle . . .”—Times Literary Supplement. 


ANCIENT ROME AT WORK: an Economic History of 
Rome from the Origins to the Empire 


By PAUL LOUIS. 

With 4 illustrations and 6 maps, 16s. net. 

“The main stages in Rome’s imperial progress are indicated, and the eco- 
nomic causes of her decline are adequately analysed. Agriculture and commerce, 
industry and finance, roads and communications, slavery and its developments, 
the rise of the colonate, and the influence of guilds are dealt with in turn, and 
their bearing on society and the social structure are discussed. . . . The 
volume presents a vivid, rapidly-moving picture of the economics of the Roman 
State.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


THE ROMAN SPIRIT in Religion, Thought, and Art 
By A. GRENIER, Professor in the University of Strasburg. 
With 16 plates and 16 text illustrations, 16s. net. 


“‘T have not space to set out all the things in the book that have interested ~ 
me and given me pleasure. The sections on religion and literature are fresh and 
stimulating. The classical scholar and the general reader can be recommended 
alike to read every page of this admirable book.””—WNation. 

“A brilliant interpretation of Latin literature and religion.”—New Leader. 


ROME THE LAW-GIVER | 
By J. DECLAREUIL, Professor in the University of Toulouse. 


16s. net. 


“The level of scholarship is extremely high, and the treatment hardly more 
technical than the subject-matter demands. The author traces the develop- 
ment of Roman law from its origin to its codification, and on to the later 
refinements which in their range, subtlety, and realistic logic have given it such 
unrivalled universality and completeness. While recommending this valuable 
synopsis as a whole, we may note as specially significant the chapter on the 
organization of credit.”—Saturday Review. 


14 


THE LIFE OF BUDDHA, as Legend and History 


By E. J. THOMAS, D.Lirr., Under Librarian in the University 
Library, Cambridge. 


With 4 plates and a map, 12s. 6d. net. 


“He has produced an authoritative account of all that is known of the life 
of the great teacher. We would recommend this important work to all interested 
in Eastern philosophy.”—Spectator. 

“The treatment of his subject is as thorough as one could wish. His know- 
ledge of the sources, his historical sense, and the soundness of his judgment make 
him a safe guide in a field in which there are many pitfalls. The book is a worthy 
addition to a notable series.”—Manchester Guardian. 


ANCIENT PERSIA, and Iranian Civilization 


By CLEMENT HUART, Member of the Institute of France. 
With 4 plates, 35 text illustrations, and a map, 12s. 6d. net. 


** A very good account of the cultural history of old Iran. A vivid picture 
of the country and an account of the scripts is followed by a history of the Ache- 
menids, Arsacids, and Sassanids. ‘The real value of the book consists in the 
excellent analyses of the cultural data referring to each epoch; the social organi- 
zation, the religious cults and beliefs, and the artistic productions. The powerful 
character sketches of the monarchs and heroes receive new life from the back- 
ground in which they are set.”—WNature. 

** An admirable epitome of the known facts.” —New Statesman. 


ART IN GREECE 
By A. pve RIDDER, Curator at the Louvre Museum, and 
W. DEONNA, Director of the Geneva Museum of Art and History. 
With 24 plates and 66 text illustrations, 21s. net. 


** A fascinating addition to the series. The authors have written attractively 
not only of Greek art from its beginnings to the Hellenistic period and its final 
decline, but of everyday Greek life and its relation to art and the artists of the 
time.”—Daily News. 

“ Even on the most familiar ground it is remarkably fresh and penetrating.” 

New Statesman. 


MONEY AND MONETARY POLICY IN EARLY TIMES 
By A. R. BURNS, B.Sc. Econ. 
With 16 plates, 25s. net. 


“ He has treated the subject with care and caution and shown clearly what the 
puzzles are. He deals mainly with Greece and Rome, slightly with Assyria, and 
gives a paragraph at the end of each chapter to the wholly independent and 
interesting coinage of China.”—Times Literary Supplement. 

“He is to be congratulated. The book is a striking contrast to the previous 
superficial treatments of the subject. Documents have been searched and the 


material obtained, digested, and presented in a most readable form.” 
Economist. 


T5 


THE NILE AND EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION 

By A. MORET, Professor at the College of France. 

With 24 plates, 79 text illustrations and 3 maps, 25s. net. 

“ This brilliant story of Egyptian society. MM. Moret’s peculiar contribution 
to Egyptology is that he has taken the disjecta membra of Egyptian history and 
of them has built anew the living body of that amazing culture. What was it 
that secured to Egypt a civilization more stable than that of any other of the 
great kingdoms of antiquity? M. Moret tells us. It was the Nile, coupled 
with the establishment of a religious system imposing its sanctions on every 
social duty. As seen in his sympathetic retrospect, this great religion is curiously 
attractive. It was the real moral and spiritual force permeating the whole of 
Egyptian life. Art and science and literature ministered to it, and it sustained 
for milleniums the most massive, coherent, and amiable civilization the world 
has known.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


THE HISTORY OF MUSIC 


By CECIL GRAY. 
12s. 6d. net. 

“‘ Here is just the book readers have been looking for, and looking for too 
long in vain. No music-lover would find it other than arresting from cover 
to cover. Its distinction of style . . its meticulous accuracy 
its fresh and original standpoint. It is not too much to say that it is one of the 
most illuminating books of this decade.”—Sir Ricuarp Terry, in Queen. 

** A book which is quite one of the best of its kind.” —Observer. 


THE ROMAN WORLD 
By VICTOR CHAPOT, Professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. 
With 2 plates and 12 maps, 16s. net. 

“This survey of the Roman Empire presents in a compendious form an 
account of the expansion of Rome, the machinery of provincial government, 
and finally a survey of the Empire and its fortunes province by province. This 
is the fullest account of the Empire which has appeared in English since the 
translation of Mommsen’s two volumes nearly fifty years ago. It is enriched by 
the discoveries that have been made in the meantime, and its excellent bibli- 


ography brings the sources up to date. The volume has some useful maps.” 
—Times Literary Supplement. 


MACEDONIAN IMPERIALISM, and the Hellenization of 
the East 

By P. JOUGUET, Professor in the Universtty of Paris. 

With 7 plates and § maps, 21s. net. 

“He has told a most fascinating story and told it so well that it forms an 
excellent sequel to the ordinary histories of Greece. Particularly valuable is 
his account of the Hellenization of Asia and of Egypt, of the public and private 
life of the latter, and of the establishment of the Greek and Macedonian military 
and other colonies. To read his book shows that no one can afford to neglect 
the study of the Hellenistic period, which was responsible for many fundamental 
elements of modern civilization.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


16 


THE AMERICAN INDIAN FRONTIER 


By WILLIAM CHRISTIE MACLEOD, Assistant Professor in the 
University of Pennsylvania. 

With 13 maps, 25s. net. 

“Tt is a tale, alike for its romantic and its historical values, well worth the 
telling ; and it is not likely to find many tellers so competent and so vivid as 
Professor Macleod. His book is an important contribution to historical ethno- 
logy. The picture of American Indian culture drawn, with a wealth of colour 
and atmosphere, by this leading authority is in many ways attractive. The 
erudition is enlivened by innumerable human touches.”—New Statesman. 


GREEK THOUGHT, and the Origins of the Scientific Spirit 
By L. ROBIN, Professor in the University of Paris. 
With a map, 21s. net. 


“¢ His contribution will probably rank as one of the finest in the series. For 
immense erudition combined with perfect clarity of expression the book can 
have few equals.”—WNazure. 

“ Apart from his account of the three outstanding figures of Greek philosophy 
[Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras], a special meed of thanks is due to him for his 
full treatment of Plotinus and ofthe Stoics. Professor Robin’s work is characterized 
throughout by an exceptional sense of proportion.” —Times Literary Supplement. 


LIFE AND WORK IN PREHISTORIC TIMES 
By G. RENARD, Professor at the College of France. 
With 9g plates, 12s. 6d. net. 


“¢ In a text which is always informing and never dull, it is hard to know where 
to begin or when to stop [quoting]. Throughout there is a pithiness of diction 
resulting in memorable epigram. In short, the conjunction of style and matter 
is so fortunate that it gives the whole volume the individuality that marks a 
contribution to literature as contrasted with a mere textbook. The student who 
wishes to use it in the latter capacity will get from it just the right stimulus to 
send him forward. Hewill be made to realize the importance of the evolution of 
the usefut and decorative arts. He will be conducted through a veritable museum 
of curious and telling facts. In short, there is inspiration in everything that 
Professor Renard has written.”—Times Literary Supplement. 


THE COURT OF BURGUNDY 

By OTTO CARTELLIERI. 

With 25 plates, 21s. net. 

* Professor Cartellieri chose a period steeped in romantic colour. When he 
- began to work he was fascinated by the rich and splendid culture of the brilliant 
court. But there were bigger matters, as he found the more he explored, and 
his attention turned to spiritual and social questions. ‘The result is the work 
of a specialist, who has the gift of attractively presenting pictures of a strange 
period, its life and manners, its art, literature, and music, its ruler and Court, 
how the knight and the lady lived, the feasts, jousts, and tourneys.”—Times. 

“ His richly-illustrated volume is a learned and engaging guide to the culture 
of late medieval society at its most brilliant.” —Saturday Review. 


17 


THE HEROIC AGE OF INDIA ae 
By N. K. SIDHANTA, Professor of English at Lucknow University. 
12s. 6d. net. 


“‘A valuable contribution. The Heroic Age is an epoch in practically all 
races and cultures. They all show characteristics which the Indian age also 
displays. The Mahabharata is his principal quarry; the heroes of that epic 
seem near to us. With their drinking and love-making, their chivalry and 
brutality, they are of the schoolboy age of humanity. It is a delightful world 
to which Professor Sidhanta transports us. Not only scholars but all who 
would recapture the illusions of boyhood owe him a debt.” 

—TLimes Literary Supplement. 


THE GREEK CITY, and its Institutions 
By G. GLOTZ, Professor of Greek History in the University of Parts. 
; 16s. net. 


“The theme of this admirable book is the autonomous Greek city as it 
appeared in time from its first dim beginnings in the Homeric age down to its 
overthrow by Philip of Macedon. It combines great learning with philosophical 
power, and with a pure and lively style. It, of course, contains the facts, but it 
contains much more. His remarks on ostracism and the selection of magistrates 
by lot are good examples of his knowledge and his reasoning power.” 

. —Sunday Times. 

‘““He is eminently qualified to write of Greek institutions, and his account 
of the evolution of man as a ‘ political animal’ in Greece is enriched with the 
results of discovery since the days of Fustel de Coulanges, whom he rivals in 
logic and lucidity.” —Yimes Literary Supplement. 


ROMAN POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS, from City to State 
By LEON HOMO, Professor in the University of Lyons. 
16s. net. 


“No other English book presents in so convenient a form the story of the 
stages through which the Roman Constitution arrived at its ultimate form of 
absolute monarchy and bureaucratic organization. From a description of the 
rise of the oligarchy, he proceeds to give a lively account of the period of transition 
in which the ideals of Pompey and Cesar, Principate and Monarchy, struggle 
for the victory, and goes on to show how the Principate of Augustus passes by 
inevitable development into the military monarchy of the later Emperors.” 

—Times Literary Supplement. 


THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD 

By J. TOUTAIN, Sometime Member of the French School at Rome. 

With 6 maps, 16s. net. 

‘““He has written a lucid and attractive volume, mainly concerned with 
Greece and Rome. But he sketches the beginnings of trade in primitive society, 
the history of Carthage, and the dawn of commerce in prehistoric Italy as well 
as the development of Etruria. Those who imagine that capital is a modern 
phenomenon may be commended to the chapter on capitalism in Republican 
Rome from the Punic Wars onwards.”—Spectator. 


18 


Other volumes, which are nearing publication, include: 


MINOANS, PHILISTINES AND GREEKS : 3.c. 1400-900 


By A. R. BURN, sometime Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford. 
With 16 plates, about I2s. 6d. net. 


This book is a study of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the lands 
bordering the eastern Mediterranean. Evidence for the history of this age is not 
lacking. Archzology can provide a skeleton ; Greek and Hebrew legend and the 
surviving fragments of Lydian and Pheenician tradition, with occasional assistance 
from Hittite or Egyptian documents, enable us to clothe the skeleton with 
flesh and blood. Nearly a quarter of the book consists of a critique of the 
evidence. The remainder is an attempt to give a continuous narrative of the 
period, and to place in their historical context the brilliant Hebrew legends of 
the Judges and of Saul and David, and the Greek epic traditions of Minos and 
Theseus and of the wars of Thebes and Troy. 


DEATH CUSTOMS : an Analytical Study of Burial Rites 
By E. BENDAM, P#.D., 4.M. 
About 12s. 6d. net. 


Taking the primitive life of such widely-separated areas as Australia, Melanesia, 
North Siberia, and India as the background for her study, the author deals here 
with the conception of death throughout the world, with its effect upon mourning 
and burial customs, and so upon the sociological, psychological, and general 
cultural characteristics of life itself. The nature of primitive mentality and the 
diffusion of cultural traits are among the subjects specially discussed. 


CHINESE CIVILIZATION 


By M. GRANET,, Professor at L’Ecole des Langues Ortentales. 
With 12 plates and § maps, about 21s. net. 


Professor Granet’s work marks a turning-point in Chinese studies. His 
account here of Chinese history and civilization, despite the daring of his 
hypotheses, is marked by sobriety and backed up by a wealth of evidence, The 
first part is devoted to the political history of China and the second to a 
fascinating analysis of civilization and society, the life in the fields, the foundation 
of the chieftainships, and the seignorial town. 


THE END OF THE ANCIENT WORLD, and the Beginning 
of the Middle Ages 
By FERDINAND LOT, Professor in the University of Parts. 
With 3 plates, and 3 maps, about 16s. net. 


The present volume treats of the collapse of the Roman Empire and the 
dawn of the Middle Ages. The author analyses the various elements constituting 
this new world and draws vivid portraits of its outstanding personalities, in 
order to show that the barbarians did not, as is commonly held, bring a regenera- 
tion but a general bankruptcy of the human spirit. The main thesis is that the 
new world which began in the eighth century, transformed from within rather 
than from without, owed its life to the three forces of Islamism, the Papacy, and 
Feudalism. A mentality came into being as different from that of the ancient 
world as it is from ours of today—the mentality of the Middle Ages. 


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